An Unfortunate Affair
by trueplaya
Summary: My name is Mason, and I'm just a Counter Strike content creator. So when suddenly the cast from Fire Emblem: Awakening showed up at my doorstep, I was pretty surprised. Now I gotta get these dudes back home. (RIP Mason 2017-2000, rekt to death, died as a self-insert)
1. Weirdest Vlog Ever

**Author's Note: Holy Jesus, I'm actually writing this… This story's theme song is "Where the Hood At" by DMX. You'll see what I'm talking about.**

Chapter 1: Weirdest Vlog Ever

"Hey what's up everyone, today I'll be making a video about general post plant strategy. So I'm going to be covering a variety of different scenarios when you're terrorists and the bomb is planted. First we should go over when you've got more guys alive. If you're in any type of retake where you have more alive, so five on four, three on two, etc, then you really shouldn't be facing the enemy."

Then, with noclip on, I moved my character around the A bombsite on Dust II, eventually coming to Long A. "Alright, so whenever you do a long hit on Dust II and you have even numbers or a man advantage, someone should be watching the long flank. You only need one guy to do this, but it's something that needs to be done in this scenario. The reason being that if some guy works his or her way up long when you've done a long hit and no one is watching it, then that person is gonna get a bunch of free kills on unaware players because no one was watching the flank. If you have like three or four guys alive and you plant here or here," I gesture to certain parts of the bombsite, "then you can have two guys here for some good post plant spots as well as a safe exit if the other team saves."

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard a giant crash, almost like thunder, which stopped as quickly as it started. Curious and also somewhat scared, I looked out the window and noticed that the weather outside was the same as before. "What the fuck is going on out there?" I asked to no one as I got up to investigate, with Theodore joining me.

"Oh, right, this must be very confusing to you. Look, my name is Mason, and I'm just a Counter Strike youtuber and streamer. Now, considering my profession, I'm passionate about video games by default. Yeah, I know I said Counter Strike, but I make videos on other games too."

Yeah, here's the thing: in the past I've talked to myself or inanimate objects, and when you're talking into a web camera, the habit kind of gets reinforced. Whether voiced or not, I'm going to hear my thoughts. I don't care what other people say about it; Frank Underwood talks to a being he can't see (the viewer) all the time, and that guy is the President of the United States (as of the end of Season 4, that is).

After a bit of walking, I'm outside and I see what appear to be two bodyys (shit, I meant bodies, this is what happens when you watch too much professional Counter Strike) laying on the ground, not moving. The good news is, after putting my finger on their necks it became apparent they were still breathing.

Normally, if a loud crash suddenly came out of nowhere and two people were lying unconscious on the ground, then my neighbors would wake up and form quite the crowd. However, it was pretty early in the morning, and I was the first out. Look, I think it's better to wake up early and sleep late, okay? You get more time to do stuff you want; I never understood people who slept in on the weekends or over summer break as a result. I put Theodore in my pocket, and make two trips carrying the bodies back to my apartment (which must look incredibly suspicious now that I think about it).

After getting back inside the house, the futon is extended, and the two sleepers are laying on it. I put Theodore out of my pocket and onto the nearby table, and I find myself talking to the green teddy bear. "Yeah, you're right Theodore, I probably should take a closer look at these two."

But before I get to looking at their faces, I see some very familiar objects. The cape. Blue hair. A strange looking book. Suddenly, as I begin to realize who these two look like, I'm approaching rather slowly. "Theodore, facial recognition got a hit…" Then I turn them over to look at their faces.

"Jesus Christ, it's Jason Bourne." I say calmly, but with concern, referencing one of my favorite memes in a fitting manner.

Alright, it's not Jason Bourne. No, this is far more shocking. Lucina and Morgan from Fire Emblem Awakening. I said I covered other games, Fire Emblem is one of them. Initially, I think to myself that these two are simply very convincing cosplayers, but the fact that they were GTA wasted on the ground, along with the random thunder-like sound beg to differ. How can I know for sure that they're just in costumes?

Oh, right. Lucina has the Brand of the Exalt in her eye. So I'll just very slowly open it without waking her up and- Oh what?! Damn, I'm so shocked that the excited caster voice is taking control.

Because the Brand is actually in her eye. What. Is. Happening. I don't know how you could fake that detail. Additionally, I look up both Lucina and Morgan on the internet, and their appearances match perfectly. By the way, it seems that Morgan is female, and I'm recording every minute of this. My eyesight isn't bad, but I have a special pair of glasses that has a small camera inside them. It's quite nice for vlogging, as it means you don't have to hold your phone and seriously what the fuck is going on.

Honestly, I'm kinda glad that all of this is getting recorded. If anyone thinks I'm crazy when I say that Morgan and Lucina from Fire Emblem Awakening have suddenly popped up in the real world, then I have hard evidence to back my claim. "Well everyone, I think this may be the weirdest vlog ever. I'm just recording a video here, and all of a sudden there's like a loud crash, and then these two girls show up, and it turns out these dudes are from Fire Emblem. Like, man, this is where I'd just walk off the set, you know?" I say with a bit of a nervous laugh. "Alright, I'll see ya guys later." Then I turn off the camera and take off the glasses.

"What to do, Theodore, what to do…" I say, thinking what my next move should be. Maybe, when they wake up, they'll explain everything? Well, Lucina at least- I know Morgan has amnesia, like her dad. RIP. Suddenly the doorbell rings, and thank god, because I need to know that I'm still in the real world.

Wait. Shit.

I remember that Morgan and Lucina are still lying on the futon, and even if we're all fully clothed and haven't done anything, it may look somewhat suspicious to an outsider. Before answering, I find myself trying to do my best Bill Clinton impression.

… Okay, I know he was lying when he said that, and I also think of that line when I believe someone's lying about something, especially when it involves relationships beyond the platonic kind. But for some reason, it's my go-to when I need to clear things up or tell a convincing lie.

The guy at the door is my neighbor, John. You'll like him, though I know where his mind is gonna go right away given the circumstances. So I say my line. "Now I want you to listen to me John." I pause to put more emphasis in my previous statement and the next, even though he's heard it many times by now. "I did not have sexual relations with those women," I said, going slowly between the words not and relations and trying to imitate Clinton's accent, while gesturing to the empty futon.

Wait, empty?

I do a double take and sure enough, Lucina and Morgan aren't there. Shit, they couldn't have gotten far. I instantly check and notice that they're in the bedroom which also has my computers inside. Thank god.

"Damn son, you had me worried. For a sec I thought you were calling your right hand a woman," John remarks. "In any case I see you, man. Hooking up with people at cosplay conventions, huh? Seems like your fantasies are wilder than I ever imagined. Shit."

The other three of us would be embarrassed, but I imagine that we're all too confused to take his words into account, plus Lucina is known to be so dense that bricks begin to envy her (though they don't EnVyUs).

Suddenly, Lucina pulls out the Falchion. "Who are you, and what is this dark magic?" She says while pointing the sword at the computers, Morgan following suit with her own blade.

"Whoa, whoa, Jesus H. Christ! They're just computers, and they're not gonna harm you!" I reply.

"Why do they want to destroy your comp- oh. Shit. You moaned the wrong name with these two, huh? Well, that's an unfortunate mistake," John quips.

"For the love of god, they are not cosplayers."

Morgan, understandably, looks quite shocked at her current location. "So, where are we, who is Jesus, and what is a cosplayer?"

"Okay, so you've landed in another realm entirely, and this place is Orange, California. I don't know how you got here, but you did. Jesus is one of many gods in our world, if you choose to believe in that sort of thing, and a cosplayer is someone who dresses up as someone else," I quickly reply. "But you must have even more questions than that."

As Morgan and Lucina give each other very confused looks, I start to think to myself. Should I reveal that I know who these two are, or not? This is like the part where you have to make the dialogue choice and don't know what to do. If I tell them I know their identity, they may be creeped out- or even worse, suspicious of me. Then again, if I don't say anything and somehow they realize that I knew them this whole time, I'm going to draw quite the ire.

Alright, I think I know how I'm going to play this one. "So, anyway, you two were just lying on the ground and I thought I should bring you two in here. Can you tell me your names, why you're here, any other information to know?" I ask. John looks rather shocked at me- have Lucina and Morgan from Fire Emblem Awakening really shown up at my doorstep, or is he being pranked? Also, he must be confused as to why I'm asking a seemingly meaningless question- we've both played the game, so we both know the characters, plot, etc.

Seemingly. The fact that they're here gives me the suspicion that something's gone haywire. So I can't exactly approach this the normal way.

"I'm Lucina, and this is my companion Morgan. She is a tactician, and I'm the eldest princess of the Haildom of Ylisse. To keep things brief, we are the children of the elite fighting force known as the Shepherds, and eventually we fought alongside them. However, they were slaughtered one day, and we had to flee. Eventually, the benevolent god Naga took us back in time to prevent that future from happening. We were supposed to find ourselves in Ylisse, but it appears we have been taken to the wrong land."

Okay, so from what she just said, the plot appears to be the same. However, I get the feeling that somewhere, they've gone off course from the story- after all, how do you explain the future children being in a different realm entirely? I asked that question not because I don't know the story, as I've played Awakening many times, but rather because I'd be well advised to know how this has happened. Before I can keep theorizing, someone else knocks on the door. "Wait up, I should answer that."

I look through the peephole in the door and what the fuck is going on.

There are six very familiar faces waiting on the other side, but they're not my neighbors, and I don't know if it's a good thing or not.

On the other side of the door lies Inigo, Severa, Owain, Laurent, Yarne and Cynthia. I put my left hand on my hip and my right hand to my face as I mutter, "Oh shit." Seeing as the walls are soundproof (a big plus given my profession, things can get real loud) they can't hear me. Carefully, I open the door. Come on Mason, act cool.

"What's up?" I ask casually.

Inigo ends up speaking first. "Tell me, have you come across two very fair looking ladies?" Of course he'd say that. Well, I know where this is going. "Yo, Morgan, Lucina, I think you two got some visitors." They both look shocked, and then happy, upon seeing their comrades, and it's not long before they all start conversing inside my apartment.

"So, they're from Awakening, and they've landed here somehow?" John asks quietly. I don't blame him for being in disbelief, though I still nod my head up and down. "Holy shit."

"Yeah, quite frankly, I don't know how this has happened. And I don't think they do, either," I reply.

"Yo, real talk though. Why were you acting like you didn't know them back there? We've both played the games, we know about these dudes. How come you're fronting?" John asks back.

It's a good thing there's a conversation going on in the background, and also that we're talking rather quietly in my bedroom, while everyone else is in the living room. "Look man, they ended up here somehow instead of Ylisse. I'm thinking that something else is going on here, you know what I'm saying? So I can't exactly assume that it's all the same as it was in Awakening," I respond. After some consideration, John nods in approval, seeing my reasoning.

"Look, we gotta be real fucking careful now, man. Don't do any dumb shit out there, don't let it slip that you know about Awakening, you feel me?" John's a good guy, but he can definitely make some ill advised decisions. And now that the stakes are much higher than they've ever been, caution must stay with us and not with the wind.

"Alright, so what's the game plan? How are we gonna deal with the fact that the cast of Awakening is in the living room, and that more may be coming in?" John asks. It's a good question, one that I don't know the answer to. Yet.

"Listen up. We're gonna find out everything we know first, and then I can craft the strat from there, okay?" By the way, strat is short for strategy- it's a Counter Strike term. So with that in mind, John and I go back to the living room.

Suddenly, they're all staring at us. Man, this is odd. Then again, we must look ridiculous to them in our clothes, so I can see why they'd be staring. "So uh, are you guys, like, friends or something?" There's the casual California tone coming out of me, and no doubt being on the Internet and watching all those MLG parodies made it worse. Not that I mind, as I can switch between casual and serious pretty quickly. It's quite handy; I can go casual when I want to be disarming or when I'm talking with friends, and then formal on the rare occasion that I'm with high society. In my videos I like to rapidly switch between the two, it's quite fun.

"Are you daft? Of course we are, why do you think we're here?" I could've had my eyes closed, and I'd have known that sarcastic, biting voice belonged to Severa. But no matter, time to get down to business, like the Ying Yang Twins (The Whisper Song was utterly hilarious, you gotta see the music video).

"Okay, so they've already explained how they got here," I say while gesturing to Morgan and Lucina, "can I assume you guys followed suit?"

In response, I hear a very refined voice- it's Laurent speaking. "Yes, we did. We were supposed to land in Ylisse, but we found ourselves in this strange land. As a result, we decided to go and ask about this realm and where Ylisse was, and yours was the first home we found. It appears that a fortunate coincidence has led us to our comrades."

"Fate has led us to you, the unexpected heroes of our story! It is with great honor that I introduce myself-" Owain would have rambled enough to make an hour long vlog, but then Severa cut him off.

"I'm Severa, this pervert is Inigo, these hero obsessed morons are Owain and Cynthia, shy boy here is Yarne, and this guy with the ridiculous hat is Laurent." Frank as ever. Owain and Cynthia look disappointed; it seems like they had a grand introduction planned out.

"So, is there anyone else that may come down here? Because, like, we've already run into eight of you today," John asks. Clearly he's in on the plan.

"Yeah, more of us came through the portal. It doesn't seem like they made it here, however," Yarne says. He looks and sounds pretty scared, not that I can blame him given his backstory. Of course, he also happens to be a taguel, so I guess the jury is still out on whether or not he's a P.A.B. (Pussy Ass Bitch).

Oh yeah, that's right. Are the rest of the future children going to make it down here, or did they get into Ylisse somehow? It's another thing to wonder about- would that be a good thing or a bad thing? Wait, I can't wonder about that yet, because John is speaking up again.

"Yo, Lucina, so you said that your parents all died, right?" She nods in reply. "So who exactly wanted you all dead?"

"Our primary enemies were from Plegia. So we ended up fighting their army, King Validar, who was also the leader of the Grimleal, a group of religious fanatics intent on reviving Grima, a malicious dragon whose purpose is to end the world as we know it. In the future where we come from, he succeeds. Our mission is to go back in time and prevent this from happening," Lucina explains.

"Damn. It seems like whoever was in charge of the time traveling part really messed up, because they took you to the wrong realm, and in the wrong direction. You motherfuckers got taken forward in time," I note. Like, seriously, how the fuck does that happen? I believe it's Naga who helps send them back in the game, so if I meet her I'll have to tell her to up her time travel game. It's pretty weak, like Ex6TenZ at the majors. I don't know if I feel sad or laugh at that comment. Context- the majors are the biggest tournaments in Counter Strike. After the first one, he hasn't made the playoffs of a single major. While he is, to many, one of the greatest in game leaders in CS:GO (short for Counter Strike: Global Offensive), these repeated failures have left him rotting in Team , a squad that figures to go nowhere quickly.

Man, I'm really zoning out today. Like, even more than usual. Back to the topic at hand… "It must have been an rare accident by the Divine Dragon Naga in the heat of the moment, as we of the Justice Cabal were being chased by the Grimleal while trying to go back," Cynthia explains. Color me surprised; for her character, that was pretty restrained, and I actually understood what she was saying. "In order to prevent the disastrous future that is to come, we must go back to Ylisse and help our parents in the wars to come." Two for two, Cynthia. Good job.

"Will you help our humble group, the Justice Cabal, in our quest to rewrite Ylissean history?" Owain asks. Doesn't sound so humble to me, but then again, I can't exactly say no to such a charming group. Especially one that is armed to the teeth with weapons and Severa's razor tongue (it may as well be a weapon all on it's own). So with that in mind...

"Okay, we'll help out. Now, just start from the beginning so we know what we're doing here."

And that begins a very long explanation.

 **Author's Note: I really just wanted to write something unlike anything I'd ever done before, so that's how this got written. Anyway, I think that's the longest chapter I've written to this date, hopefully I can maintain a consistent and longer chapter length for this story. Don't worry, I've got greater heights planned here, the table just needs to be set first. Hoping I can update faster, leave reviews for praise, constructive criticism or whatever it may be. Stick around, I'm not dead!**


	2. Setting The Table

"Setting the Table"

October 12, 10:39 AM

Mason Wayne

Orange, California

Justice Cabal

We'd be here for a really long time if I told you everything the Justice Cabal said, so I'll keep it simple. Basically, the description of events that I got indicates that nothing went different from the game's original story. All the names, battles, events are the same. Trust me, they explained in great detail, and I asked A LOT of questions. Now that Lucina's said everything she can (for now), it's time to start looking at the big picture. I'll have to let them know what's going to happen, without giving away that I know what's going to happen. It's complicated.

"So, Chrom got done in by the person who was closest to him?" Lucina nods. "Alright." I get out a pen and a sheet of paper, and start writing. "So let's think about who would be closest to him." Then I pretend to think for a moment. "Ok, so any family should be suspected. This includes Lucina, Lissa, Cynthia, and Sumia. He was also close to Frederick, his retainer, right?" My question sees heads nodding upward as a reply. "Alright, so he should be considered a candidate as well. Oh, right, can't forget about Robin."

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the murder mystery I've created has gotten me some dirty looks from Morgan, Lucina, Cynthia, Owain and Inigo.

Oh man, this is actually a really bad position I've found myself in. Those motherfuckers are giving me the death glare, and they aren't exactly unarmed. Yo, like chill, I'm just trying to help you guys out! Time to go back to my casual tone. "Look, I ain't saying that anyone is the killer yet. I'm just looking at the possibilities, you feel me?" That doesn't exactly ease the glares I'm getting back here. Meanwhile, that lucky bastard John doesn't have to deal with a bunch of angry looking Shepherds. I give him a look that says "help me", and in return he stares at me sheepishly while ruffling his hair. Goddamnit.

Suddenly I craft another theory. I don't know if it'll help me right now, but the more I think about it, I can't ignore it. "There's a chance that no one person is responsible for the betrayal." After that sentence, their faces soften. Fucking hell, this really is gonna make it way worse. "It could be a conspiracy involving multiple parties." And now they're even angrier at me. Sheeeeeeeeit.

"Think about it. Do you guys really think that one person is going to take down the Exalt of Ylisse? Not only does he have quite the security, but Chrom is also a capable fighter. Most assassination attempts, successful or not, often have several people involved." As much as they hate to admit that their parent or parents may be involved in the murder of Chrom, it's evident that the children can't ignore the possibility. That doesn't exactly help my standing with anyone here, however.

"How could you suspect my father, a knight of justice, of treason?! What madness is this?" Owain asks in disbelief.

"Well, if we ever run low on food, we can always get rid of the dead weight…" Severa doesn't finish her sentence; the look she gives me says all I need to know.

"Calm down, everyone. Unpleasant as it may be, there's still merit to his proposal." That's Lucina. Thank god- someone who doesn't think I have an agenda! I guess it makes sense, given her character. "But with all that said, who do you suspect first?"

That's actually really hard and easy to answer all at once. On the one hand, I know who's supposed to kill Chrom in the future… "Robin,"...but then, who would be suspicious beyond him? Lucina's report has given me nothing to think that anyone else got in on the plot. And of course, if things stay on course, then there is no other suspect. I decide that I should play it safe. "As it is, there's no reason to think anyone else aside from Robin would be suspicious."

"So why exactly do you suspect my father?" Morgan asks, with barely restrained anger.

"Think about it. Some guy just laying around on some field, and he claims not to remember anything? Then, before you know it, he's providing near-perfect tactics to take down the Plegian Army, and eventually Valm, all while collecting Gemstones for the Fire Emblem that Grima so desperately desires along the way. Now if you're Chrom, this guy's been a 'valuable ally' for a long time, so you're not gonna think he's gonna try a hit on you. Of course, because this Robin fellow has amnesia, his past is inherently mysterious, but since he 'doesn't remember' no one can prod him on what he really knows. I gotta say, that's a pretty good setup right there- if your double agent doesn't make the classic mistake of getting too attached to the people he or she is betraying, then only the seriously paranoid will see it coming if the acting is good enough."

Wow, that was a long rant. To be honest, I was caught off guard when it turned out Robin was Chrom's killer the first time I played through, but after looking back at everything, it should have been obvious to me that he or she was The Mole- after all, none of the other people close to him were given any reason to want Chrom dead. Oh, and if looks could kill, then Morgan would be digging my grave right now.

Lucky for me, they don't, and while everyone's gazes don't soften, it appears my explanation is sound enough to keep me safe- for now. "When we get back to Ylisse, we'll be able to determine who the traitor is," Lucina remarks.

"Can you guys take it easy on Mason here?" John says in my defense. "He's not trying to fuck you over here, he's just looking at all the possible scenarios." For someone who can be so dumb, he really is a good friend; on more than one occasion he's covered or stood up for me.

"In any case, it was good to meet you two. But now, we truly must leave, and find the Outrealm Gate to get back to our realm." After Yarne's remark, John and I speak up at the same time.

"Whoa." John says.

"Wait the fuck up," I say, staying casual.

"First of all, you guys don't even know where the Gate is located down here," John starts.

Then I follow up. "Second, none of you are familiar with this world, but we are."

"Not to mention, you all are look out of place. What you see us wearing is the kind of the norm down here," John finishes our points, while gesturing to what him and I are wearing- he's got dark brown jeans on, along with a Superman T-Shirt (he's really into superheroes) and some slick looking black Air Jordans. I'm wearing a green and blue shirt along with dark blue jeans and a light blue jacket tied around my waist (can you guess my favorite colors?) And finally, I'm wearing a Chargers visor. Bolt Up.

"They make good points. We'd be best off with them right now," Inigo observes. There you go. I get the feeling that the image of someone constantly trying to find random pussy with the intensity of the SEALs looking for Bin Laden is a cover for a capable fighter and clever thinker.

"Alright, you all need to take some showers, then get some different clothes. After that, we should start the search for the Gate." It's right now that I'm grateful for taking up the role of in game leader when playing CS:GO- after extensive playing and watching, I have a good idea of how to craft tactics and make proper decisions. "We should split up."

"Okay, you roll with Morgan, Lucina, Inigo and Laurent. I'll be with the rest." With that, John walks out with Severa, Yarne, Owain and Cynthia.

"Well, better show you how the shower works. Yo, Morgan." The tactician follows me into the bathroom as I turn on the lights, and then the water. "Alright, so you pull this little thing up and then pull out the knob to turn on the water. This bottle here cleans your hair when you rub some of it, and this bottle works for the rest of your body." She looks amazed; after all, this technology is way beyond what she's used to at home. "This white towel is for you, and if you turn the knob to the left, the water gets hotter. Right makes it colder."

"Look, I'm sorry about what I did back there," Morgan said in a much more level tone. It's good to see she's chilled out now. "I shouldn't have gotten angry at you back there."

"Don't worry about it. There's just one more thing you gotta do now."

"And that is?" She asks.

"Get undressed." This got me a slap and the angry face again. "Not in front of me! The fuck I look like to you, some kind of sexual predator?!" I walk out after that, and she finally begins showering. "Damn."

"Underneath her fair countenance lies quite a clever mind and a nasty temper. Sadly, my friend, you had to figure that out the hard way." You see what I mean? Inigo is pretty smart after all- I'll need to keep an eye on him.

"Yeah. At any rate, I guess if we find Anna, then you guys have your ticket home. Hopefully there's one in Southern California." I notice that now that we're not talking about saving the world, they look quite amazed at how far forward our technology is down here. Seriously, their eyes are so wide from looking in my apartment and out the window that I might mistake them for anime characters. Not like that'd be surprising, given today's events so far. "You all like what you see?"

Suddenly Laurent puts some paper down on the dining table and starts writing about his discoveries. "Yo, wait up Laurent. I got something better to write with and on." After some searching, I give him one of my notebooks and a black pen. Laurent is smart enough to realize how they both work, and he gets back to writing at his frantic pace.

"So just to be clear Lucina, you don't have an idea where Anna in this world is located?" I'm not acting for this one, as I seriously have no clue where Anna is located.

"Sadly, yes. We have no leads or clues on her location." Shit.

"Damn. The good news is, I know somebody who can ease our search. Let me get in contact with her real quick, you all just chill here for now. When Morgan is done, y'all should follow suit and take a shower. She knows how it works." I go back into my room and pull out my phone.

Let's see, she's not on Facebook, not on Discord… oh, good, she's on Steam. Hopefully Sarah responds quickly, because I could really use her help here.

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Yo Sarah, you there?_

 _Just a Nerd: What's up Mason?_

 _tru3p1ayaZz: This is some shit straight outta one of your conspiracy theories…_

 _Just a Nerd: Go on._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Alright, no point beating around the bush- some of the future children from Fire Emblem: Awakening have shown up at my place, and now John and I are helping them go back through the Outrealm Gate to Ylisse. Since Anna runs the Outrealm Gate, I need your help in finding her._

There's a very long wait before Sarah responds again.

 _Just a Nerd: Tell me…_

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Yes?_

 _Just a Nerd: Have you been on that legalized marijuana ever since they passed the bill?_

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Goddamnit Sarah._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Like, for real, they're not cosplayers. Let me give you some proof._

I walk out of the room and towards Lucina. "Could you just hold still for a moment please?" She gives me an awkward look, but ultimately complies. I get closer and take a picture of her eye with the Brand inside. Then I take a photo of Inigo and Laurent, and send Sarah the photos.

 _Just a Nerd: Oh my fucking God._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: I suppose you're convinced now?_

 _Just a Nerd: That's not a contact lens on her eye or anything like that. Not to mention their clothes are relatively torn and beat up. A cosplayer's uniform wouldn't be battle tested._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: So are you gonna help us?_

 _Just a Nerd: I'm in. What are you guys doing now?_

 _tru3p1ayaZz: First, everyone's showering, either at my place or John's. Second, we get them different clothes. Then, the search begins._

 _Just a Nerd: So you want me to help on the search._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Yeah, and do you think you can help the female Shepherds get dressed?_

 _Just a Nerd: You could just tell me all of their names instead of female Shepherds, you know._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Calm down, I was gonna get there eventually. So beyond Inigo, Lucina and Laurent we're also rolling with Morgan, Severa, Owain, Yarne and Cynthia._

 _Just a Nerd: Ohhhhh yeah, you're gonna need some help. You've got yourself a future sex offender, a P.A.B., an amnesiac, a Tsundere, a boy and girl with delusions of grandeur, and an obsessive scientist._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: No love for Lucina?_

 _Just a Nerd: You've got at least one normal person in that group. I'll come over there and confirm if these guys are the real deal._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Wait, one more thing._

 _Just a Nerd: Yes?_

 _tru3p1ayaZz: According to Lucina, everything is the same as the plot was from Awakening- the only thing different is that when they traveled back here, some of the children landed here rather than Ylisse. I don't know about where their other companions went, and neither do they. So, be cautious. There may be something different going on that either Lucina doesn't know or isn't telling me._

 _Just a Nerd: Ok, got it. I should be there in around 30 minutes._

 _tru3p1ayaZz: Later._

Alright, so Sarah's on board as well. That's good. She's really into conspiracy theories, but don't be deceived- she's pretty talented in a variety of different fields, and, wouldn't you have it, is also a good tracker. As everyone else cycles through the shower, I start to spin the gears in my head.

Wait. Wait a goddamn minute.

They never explored this route in the game (which is a shame because it probably would've been really fucking interesting) but now a possibility begins to form in my head.

Is Morgan a double agent?

I mean, she is Robin's kid, so she has plenty of reason to want to be with him. Not to mention, Robin is supposed to be Grima's human vassal, and so the Fell Dragon's blood runs through his veins- you know his name. Shit, that was an awful reference. I'd like to take this moment to apologize to Chris Cornell, Daniel Craig, and everyone who worked on Casino Royale. That line back there was actually a fucking disgrace, and in no way should be used as a measure of how good the song "You Know My Name" actually is.

Alright, back on topic here. So not only does she have a good reason to be working with Robin, but it's also possible that she's inherited Grima's blood, and thus can be influenced by said dragon. Aw, fuck. Even worse is the fact that I gotta apply that same knowledge to Inigo (in this timeline, Robin hooked up with Olivia, presumably the former realizing that the latter had feelings for him after several lap dances in a tent with only them inside).

Okay, so the support conversations went differently, but I'd think the skills that Olivia learned at what was most likely a strip club or brothel came into play at some point.

After a while, everyone is done showering, and I lead Inigo and Laurent into my room so they can get changed. Their facial expressions are still the same, maybe even more shocked, when the they both walk in and see my computers.

"Theodore, I think Laurent and Inigo here are more than a little confused right now." Both time travellers look at me in shock, before I gesture to the green teddy bear. "That's Theodore. He doesn't mean no harm, don't worry about him. Over the years, he's proved to be quite a good, loyal friend of mine." If it weren't for everything they had seen today, the mage and mercenary would probably assume I was a crazy dude. As is, they just let me walk through my wardrobe.

"Alright, so something in here has got to fit you guys. Hmm, let's see… oh, this should be good." Laurent's about to be an Evil Geniuses fan with some baggy jeans. "And as for you, sounds like this fits you alright." Now Inigo's wearing a Team EnVyUs jersey with some white shorts.

I must say, it's quite amusing to see Inigo and Laurent wearing esports jerseys. In fact, it's fitting that Laurent got the EG (short for Evil Geniuses) jersey. "Alright, there should be some other clothes in that closet that fit you guys. I'll pack them up."

Eventually, there's another knock on the door. And it's Sarah. "What's up Mason?" She asks.

"Oh, not much, you doing ok?"

"Yeah. So, these are your guests, I suppose?"

"They are. By the way, this is Sarah everyone. Y'all can trust her; I also told her everything that you guys told me." It seems like they've warmed up to Sarah more quickly than me. Bastards.

"Why hello there lovely lady. Would you mind if I-" Inigo doesn't get to finish his question, and Sarah doesn't need him too, as she already knows what he's going to ask. His response is a sneaker to the scrotum followed by a very painful groan. In order to quite literally add insult to injury, everyone starts laughing at him and I end up recording the whole affair. Don't worry, I'm not uploading it online. I don't think this is material fit for Reddit or WorldStar.

While Sarah, Lucina and Morgan are dressing up, I figure it's time for me to play some music and just relax for a moment before the search begins. Let's see, what's in my Spotify playlist…

Oh my god, that's perfect.

I press play, and "Where the Hood At?" by DMX starts playing.

So I lie down, enjoying the calm before the storm.

 **Author's Note: Alright everyone, looks like our heroes are looking for the Gate now. Sorry I took so long, I was doing other school related things and I also had to iron out some flaws and errors from the first chapter and this one. Next chapter, we're seeing the story from someone else's eyes- and this someone else will be a major character, with many chapters told from his or her perspective. Who do you all think it is? Type a review whether you want to speculate who it is, or for praise or constructive criticism.**


	3. Strange New World

**Author's Note: I'm back with Chapter 3! And the second narrator is…**

"Strange New World"

October 12, 11:43 AM

Morgan

Orange, California

Justice Cabal

This really is a strange new world.

I guess I shouldn't consider the music coming out of Mason's room to be weird then; after all, pretty much everything I've seen so far is not present in our world. I can just barely hear some of what the singer is saying from that strange device Mason calls a "computer". It's hard because I'm rather far away, plus I can't fully hear him because of the "beat", as Sarah calls it, playing along with his voice. According to her, this music that's playing is called "gangsta rap".

I wonder what Mason finds so enticing about this music? I've mostly just heard the singer say "Where the Hood at?", "fuck" and "nigga" a lot. Now, I've heard people say "fuck" before (it isn't a surprise given the age of my comrades, and I've used the word myself) but "Where the Hood at?" and "nigga" are words I've never heard of before up until now.

"Sarah, you're familiar with this type of music and the culture here right?" I ask Sarah, who's dressing us in Mason's spare bedroom. She's dressed in some ridiculously short blue pants that appear to have been cut much too far (she calls them short shorts), and is wearing a black jacket with more of those unusually colorful shoes they call "sneakers" in this world. Her "sneakers" (which is quite an odd name, seeing as her footsteps don't seem any quieter from wearing them) are pink and white, and also much slimmer than the ones that Mason and John were wearing.

I won't lie, as odd as their clothes look, I rather like the designs somewhat. It also helps that we'll blend in as a result; my father's training has taught me that you want to be as inconspicuous as possible, on or off the battlefield. After all, he would tell me, there are plenty of threats on both, obvious and hidden, and you don't want to be an easy target for both.

"Yeah, I am," she responds as she finds a red top that fits me. Lucina's already been dressed up- it's unusual to see someone who's constantly wearing a blue battle outfit suddenly wearing a rather feminine looking sleeveless purple shirt with some black pants.

But back to my question. "So, what's a nigga?"

"It's a derogatory term for a black person, and a word that you will never say unless forced to, and you'll especially not say it around black people like myself. Trust me, if a white girl like yourself starts saying that you're gonna get your ass kicked." She looks dead serious as she ways that. If this is what an ally thinks of the word, I'd hate to hear what an enemy would tell me if I let the word slip. "Just say n-word for the most part. Trust me on this one." Don't worry Sarah. I already do.

Thankfully for me, the blue pants she's given me aren't made of uncomfortable material. That said, it still feels somewhat odd, yet comfortable in these clothes. I know, I know- it sounds contradictory, but that's the best way I can describe it.

I like Sarah- she seems trustworthy, smart, and reliable. As a tactician, you want people like that. If she knew how to fight, then she'd be absolutely perfect. As for John, I don't really know him all that much other than that he's Mason's friend, but he seems harmless.

Now as for Mason himself, well, that's a different story.

It's ironic, really; by casting suspicion on others, he's casted suspicion onto himself. As much as I hate to admit it, however, he did make some good points…

What am I saying? Father would have no reason to kill Chrom, and, as Mason brought up, thereby defeating his own argument in the process, the Exalt of Ylisse is bound to have a hefty amount of security surrounding him. This means that Father wouldn't be able to kill Chrom on his own, nor would he find Chrom alone, so really, his argument is invalid. With that said, he certainly isn't stupid, and certainly has a greater knowledge of this world's technology and weapons than myself.

After considering the trio for a while, I conclude that Mason is the biggest potential threat of them all. I'll have to keep an eye on him. For now, however, we'll the assistance of him, John and Sarah- they know this land better than any of us. Although they don't know where the Gate is located, neither do we, so we're all in the same boat.

Eventually, we're all dressed up and ready to go out. When we step out of the room, I notice that Laurent and Inigo are wearing clothes just as strange, possibly even stranger than ours. The thing I notice most are the strange looking symbols on their dark blue shirts, as well as the fact that Laurent's pants are loose, and Inigo's pants are short, but not as short as Sarah's. Not to mention their stares, which must be as confused as the ones that we're giving.

"Hey, this was from Mason's wardrobe," Inigo says, as if he's trying to justify his clothing. Mason gives an approving nod; I don't know if he intentionally or unintentionally ignores the fact that Inigo made that statement in a negative context. Oh well. Strange clothes and strange mannerisms are fitting for a very strange person.

"Alright, so no doubt there'll be many different people called Anna in this region just because of how large the population is down here. But anyways, this Anna you speak of has red hair, is about Laurent's height, and has an unusually high amount of twin sisters, right?" Mason asks me. I nod in reply. "Well Theodore, this figures to be a rather long search then."

Wait.

Who is Theodore? Is it… that green bear on the dining table with a bat on his chest and a white scarf wrapped around his neck?

Did he just talk to it, an inanimate object?

You know, I'm starting to wonder if this man is entirely grounded in reality. Or if he ever grew up past six years old.

Going back to business, I suddenly notice Anna pulling out a strange device that somewhat resembles the computers in Mason, just smaller. "This is a laptop. It's a computer that you can take with you for when you're traveling or away from home," Sarah says quickly. "I'm going to be using it to try and track down any 'Annas' in our local area," She says as she performs some tasks on her laptop. I begin to take some note of how it works- there's this thing they call a keyboard, and she presses on a key that happens to have a letter, number or symbol on it. When she presses it, the letter, number or symbol key that she's pressed on appears on the screen. It's a lot more efficient than writing. There's probably much, much more to these computers, laptops and other objects than what little I've learned so far, but those are questions that I can ask later.

I get the feeling that if we can learn to use all these devices effectively, it'll be a huge boost in our effort to stop Grima. My gut tells me this laptop is better at tracking down a single person than running through countless individual papers containing personal information on citizens.

"Well, we have some businesses with Anna's name on it. And now we gotta narrow it down to transportation, since that's what this 'Anna' specializes in…" Sarah keeps typing, and I remain amazed. I'll need to ask this trio of friends about everything they know on this technology when I get the chance.

"Alright, sounds like we've got three options that are on the grid here. For those of you that don't know, that means it's been legally entered and recognized by the government," Anna says. Well, it makes sense that they have different sayings here as well; I've already seen some first hand.

"In Santa Ana, we have Anna's General Transport. In Garden Grove, there's Anna's Transporting Services, and Compton has Anna's Transporters," Sarah says. Presumably, these are cities relatively close to Orange, which Mason told us is our current location.

I hear a ring, followed by the door opening. John shows up with Owain, Severa, Yarne and Cynthia. "Oh, good, you're here Sarah. What'd I miss?" He asks.

"As of now I have three possible locations, one in Long Beach, one in Garden Grove and another in Compton," Sarah replies. "You two are Cynthia and Severa, right?" My two comrades nod in reply. "Come in here, I gotta get you two dressed and out of those clothes." Cynthia and Severa follow her into Mason's spare bedroom. Owain and Yarne, meanwhile, are dressed up already. Owain has on a brown top with pants of a matching color, while Yarne has a black hat on his head that resembles the one that Mason is wearing, except it isn't cut off at the top. He has on some long black pants, and a long black shirt with two very large and oddly shaped letters on the front. What appears to be an "O" is curved, very long, and white in color, while there seems to be a big green "G" intersecting with it.

"We have three cars, three locations and eleven people in total. I can hold five people in my car, Sarah can also hold five, and you, John, can hold seven. Sounds like we've gotta split up in even groups and tackle all three locations at once," Mason notes.

"Imma roll with Owain, Severa and Cynthia out to Garden Grove," John proclaims.

"I'll go with Yarne and Laurent over to Santa Ana!" Sarah exclaims from the other room.

"Well then. Lucina, Inigo, Morgan, looks like we're going to Compton," Mason says.

Oh man. This is gonna be an awkward ride. Especially because I slapped him earlier for thinking that he wanted me to strip naked in front of him. I must admit, that was a pretty stupid move on my end. It doesn't help that I happen to be suspicious of him as well.

Mason goes back into his room to gather some supplies, or "grab some shit" as he puts it, and once Sarah is done dressing Severa and Cynthia everyone is off. When he emerges from his room, he looks the same, but with two differences: he's wearing a pair of green gloves, one of which is wielding a large blue knife. With the others out, he starts to speak.

"Okay, so before we get in there, I should give you guys some pointers. First of all, Compton has a pretty bad reputation. It's a rough neighborhood, filled with criminals and drugs, those two often overlapping. Try not to draw get in trouble while we're down there. No offense to Compton, but it is a real shithole. We're gonna get in there, see what Anna's Transporters are all about, and that's it. A few wrong moves and you can just be another chapter in the city's long and tragic history book," Mason explains. I will admit, that is quite informative- and pretty insightful. See, his intelligence is another reason for me to keep an eye on him.

Eventually, he opens up the door and leads us out. We follow him out and down the stairs into what he calls the garage, and he continues talking along the way. "About those drugs I mentioned earlier. Well, let's just say not all the advancements we made in this world were for the better. You see, there are a variety of different illegal substances, each with different names; cocaine, heroin, meth, and the list goes on, but those are the most common ones. That shit will fuck with your mind and body- and all of these drugs are extremely addictive. Now, some rather smart motherfuckers out there eventually made the connection, and turned it into a business. Our government decided around fifty years ago that they couldn't just let it happen- and that's why these are known as illegal. Let's just say that while the intention to stop drugs by making them illegal was fine, it hasn't worked so well in practice. Odds are, we'll be running into some of these drug dealers in Compton." Eventually, we all get into the car, which looks like a giant green box, and he "fastens our seatbelts". I'm sitting in the front, next to Mason, while Lucina and Inigo are in the back.

"This, people, is a car. A Mini Cooper, to be exact. It's much faster than a horse, take my word for it. Now, let's just see what the location is," Mason says while looking through what he says is a phone, "Ah, there it is. Just gonna set up the GPS now and there we go." Suddenly, we start moving rather quickly. He's right- it does go much faster than a horse.

"Okay, so Theodore and I just wanna be straight with you guys," He proclaims while gesturing to the teddy bear once more, who's now sitting between Mason and I in what appears to be two very deep circles.

"Oh, yeah, those are cup holders, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I didn't mean to be a dick back there, you know what I'm saying?" I notice that his voice is casual, and often unemotional. In other words, he's the opposite of Owain and Cynthia.

"So like, I was just trying to make the connection with what I had to work with back there, but as of now, there's like, nothing solid yet. I can't really tell who the killer is yet, you feel me?" I guess "you feel me" has the same meaning as "you know what I'm saying".

"Don't worry about it- as far as I know, you're helping us," Lucina says in defense of our transport.

"I don't blame you for your line of thinking, but rest assured I'm not a Shepherd killer. They call me the lady killer more often," Inigo says with a wink.

"Really? Because the last time you went out with a girl it seemed like she was on the verge of killing you," I reply sarcastically.

"Hey! I'll have you know that was one time-" I cut off Inigo mid sentence.

"And there are about fifty other dates just like that," I reply. And that leaves him silenced.

"Damn Morgan, you just wrecked him. R-E-K-T wrecked," Mason says, apparently impressed. I'm going to ignore the fact that he just misspelled that. "Alright, Imma just blast some music now on my phone," He says as we stop.

"Aww yeah, this is some good shit right here man." He pushes a button, and more of his strange music starts playing. This time, because I'm closer and the "beat" is not as loud, I can actually hear the singer.

 _Woke up quick, at about noon_

 _Just thought that I had to be in Compton soon_

Well, I guess that's fitting, considering where we're going.

 _I gotta get drunk before the day begins_

 _Before my mother starts bitching about my friends_

 _About to go and damn near went blind_

 _Young niggas on the path throwing up gang signs_

There's that word again. What could possibly so offensive about it? This is something I'll need to ask about later on.

 _I went in the house to get the clip_

 _With my MAC-10, on the side of my hip_

 _I bailed outside and I pointed my weapon_

 _Just as I thought, the fools kept steppin_

I notice something; in contrast to the previous singer, this singer is quite calm and mellow.

 _I jumped in the fo' hit the juice on my ride_

 _I got front and back, side to side_

 _Then I let the Alpine play_

 _I was pumping new shit by NWA_

What exactly is this singer talking about? This is another thing I'll have to ask Mason, Sarah or John when I get the chance.

 _It was Gangsta Gangsta at the top of my list_

 _Then I played my own shit, it went something like this_

 _Cruisin' down the street in my six four_

 _Jockin' the bitches and slappin the hoes_

Okay, now it's getting kind of disturbing. I know what "bitch" means, is "jockin" a violent act?

 _I went to the park to get the scoop_

 _Knuckle-heads out there cold shooting some hoop_

So is he getting information now? The mind wonders.

 _A car pulls out, who could it be?_

 _It's a fresh El Camino, running Kilo G_

 _He rolls down the window and he starts to say_

 _It's all about making that GTA_

"If you're wondering, GTA means Grand Theft Auto. It's a crime," Mason notes. He's answered one of my questions, though I have many more.

 _Cause the boys in the hood are always hard_

 _Come talking that trash and we'll pull your card_

 _Knowin' nothing in life but to be legit_

 _Don't quote me boy I ain't said shit_

What I can gather from these lyrics is that the singer has a group of criminal friends who are making a threat to someone or a group of people. I start to think: if this type of music is popular, then what exactly do these people see in it that makes it appealing?

"Alright, alright, we won't be there in like forty minutes. So imma turn this off now. Y'all better try to sleep before we get to Compton, you guys will need the energy," Mason says. Come to think of it, I am somewhat tired, while Inigo and Lucina don't look much better off.

So even though I'm not comfortable in this seat yet, and we're moving at breakneck speeds, I end up making myself go to sleep.

Some time passes, and we don't wake up on our own. Mason announces that we have arrived at "Anna's Transport" in Compton.

 **Author's Note: Well, there it is everyone. I wonder if you all were actually surprised at Morgan being the next narrator? Anyways, the plot should start to kick in soon, when our heroes see what's waiting for them. And it will be GLORIOUS! Stay tuned, and remember to review be it praise or constructive criticism. Later, everyone.**


	4. Straight Into Compton

**Author's Note: For those of you wondering, the song Mason played in the car was Dynamite Hack's remix of "Boyz N the Hood". Anyways, we're about to find out what this story is all about. Here we go!**

"Straight into Compton"

October 12, 1:48 PM

Mason Wayne

Compton, California

Justice Cabal

"John, Sarah, I've arrived at Anna's Transporters in Compton. What have you found in Santa Ana and Garden Grove?"

"Not much here at Anna's General Transport."

"Haven't found anything at Anna's Transporting Services."

"Well, wish me luck here. I'll see you all later," I say before hanging up on the group call. "We're ready when you guys are. And please, keep the weapons in the car. We're walking into a transportation center, not a goddamn war zone." The green teddy bear is chilling in my jacket pocket now. I guess I'm having the adventure with him that I always wanted as a small child. I've even got the Mini Cooper, like in Mr. Bean!

"Let's go," Lucina says simply, all the weapons now stored in the trunk after I open it up. With that, I open up the front door, letting them inside, and I follow.

Considering that we're in Compton, the building looks reasonably maintained, and I see a fair amount of customers inside. There aren't many vehicles, which makes sense since it isn't a car dealership- presumably all the buses and taxis are in a garage somewhere. But enough of that, let's get down to business.

I walk up to an employee, a black man wearing a gray shirt with light brown jeans. "The boss here is Anna, right?"

"Yes, she is." The man, named Eric, judging from his name tag, responds.

"Do you mind if my friends and I here talk to her? There's something we wanted to ask her about," I reply. Eric tells us to follow him up the stairs, and tells us to wait outside while he tells Anna about our unexpected visit.

"She'll be with you any moment," He says politely as he walks back down the stairs to his desk.

"Let me do the talking while we're in there. Trust me," I say. Not to be a dick, but these three dudes don't exactly speak normally, so I probably should be handling the talking part. Thankfully, they feel the same way too, and I get three silent nods in response.

Soon after, the door opens, and a feminine voice says "Come in." We all walk into her office, and thankfully there's enough chairs for all of us.

This Anna looks similar to Anna from Fire Emblem: Awakening, which is a good sign. She has red hair, though her eyes are brown rather than red. Her facial features all look the same as well, though her outfit is, as expected, a lot more modern. She appears to have the same pants as Eric, but her shirt is red instead, probably for two reasons: to indicate that she's the boss, and also because it has to be her favorite color.

"Sounds like it must be urgent, whatever it is you're asking me about, since you didn't even call me beforehand," Anna remarks, but with no bitterness in her voice. She comes off very competent, and as a result, very confident as well.

"Yeah, sorry about that. But it is urgent, and what I'm about to say is gonna sound really weird," I say, restrained on the outside but actually somewhat nervous on the inside.

"Look, I've transported people that turned out to be drug dealers, convicted killers, without knowing because of a fake ID. There's nothing you can say that will catch me off guard," Anna responds. I can only hope that means she knows about the Outrealm Gate.

Well, there's no point in playing around anymore. "So, have you heard of the Outrealm Gate?" After I say this, Anna stares at all of us for a little while. Then, she gets up and studies our facial features. When she's done looking at Lucina, she gets back into her seat.

"Shit. What the fuck happened back there?" Anna's asking a question, but it doesn't seem to be aimed at anyone specifically. "How did you three end up here?"

"They went through the Outrealm Gate to go back in time and stop Grima from taking over the world, but ended up in Southern California somehow. They just happened to land outside my house," I reply. Well, that's the (extremely) short version, but I don't feel like spending several more hours with the long version again. "So I guess you do know about the Gate?"

"Yeah, I do. Normally, it doesn't fuck up like that. But here you are- it's not like you guys are cosplayers or anything, the brand in your eye is genuine, Lucina." She suddenly looks really worried- a complete turnaround from the confident manager. "This can only mean one thing: it's not working properly. Come with me now," Anna says as she leads us out of the office, and back into a basement downstairs.

"I was hoping that I'd never have to show this to anyone," Anna remarks while punching in a code into a locked door. When she enters it, the door opens, and waiting on the other side…

Is the Outrealm Gate.

Well, I can tell you this right now- it looks the same as it does in game. The Outrealm Gate looks like a portal with a blue backdrop. Which is why I wonder how they ended up here- the thing doesn't look too messed up at first glance.

"I know, at first glance, it doesn't look too messed up," Anna says while looking closely at it. Holy shit, it's like she read my mind! "However, it looks like some of the parts aren't working quite right. Let's see here…" Suddenly, Anna begins to trail off, presumably musing over what exactly is missing or broken.

"Oh damn, this thing is seriously fucked up. Sounds like y'all were the last to come through. Speaking of which, did anyone join you three?" She asks the time travelers.

"Owain, Severa, Yarne, Laurent and Cynthia landed here. As for everyone else, I don't know where they are yet," Lucina responds.

"Yeah, so here's the summary. Some of the parts required to make this thing work are missing, and we need to find them. Problem is, we can't exactly buy these products at a local grocery store and then call it a day. To make matters worse, I don't have the means to retrieve them. I know how to fix the thing, but I'll need the items," Anna explains. "Listen, I can't get this shit. But maybe you guys can."

If she weren't literally our only option here, I'd have refused. But as it is… "Okay, so what do we need here?"

"Oh man, this is gonna sound real stupid…" Anna says before trailing off. "You're gonna need to bring in everyone else for this one. I'll explain when they all arrive so that we only have to go over this once."

"Okay then, sounds good. Imma give them a call," I say before starting a group call. "Yo, looks like Compton has the Gate. Get your asses over here as soon as possible."

"Alright."

"Got it." They both hang up.

"Anna, they won't be here for a little while. I guess we're gonna go get some lunch while we wait for them."

"Go ahead. I'll tell you when they get over here."

"Okay then. Later." And with that, I lead my newfound friends back into the car, and try to find a fast food joint. Now that we have some time not being spent on time traveling, I notice Morgan is asking me a lot of questions. It's rather unsurprising.

"So what is that thing you use to communicate with your friends?"

"It's a phone, smartphone to be specific. You can talk with people from quite far away as long as it's working properly, but in certain circumstances it won't work as intended. You can also do a lot of other cool shit with it- go on the internet like you would with the computer, for one."

"And what exactly is the internet?"

"One of the greatest goddamn inventions by mankind. There's an entire world of information, entertainment and work to be found on it, and it can be used many purposes, most of them noble, you know what I'm saying? Of course, like anything, you can use it for some real awful shit, you feel me? Now I think we all gotta eat some lunch now, come in." I walk us into a pizza place- partially because I've loved the food since I was but a small child, and also because it should be relatively easy for my newcomers here to pick up and eat.

"Okay, so this here is pizza. It's quite simple; you take some dough, then mash up some tomatoes into a sauce and cover the dough with that. Then you put some cheese on there and let that fucker bake. That's the simplest of them all, but typically you'll be seeing people throw in other ingredients as well, such as onions, mushrooms, pepperonis, and lots of other glorious items. How hungry are you all?"

"I'm famished," Inigo notes.

"It has been quite a while since I've eaten myself," Lucina states matter of factly.

"Let's give this dough with tomatoes and cheese a try," Morgan says with excitement in her voice.

In a place that I can imagine is used to slang, my comrades rather formal remarks gain some curious looks from the customers.

Better play it safe for now. "I'd like a large cheese pizza and four medium drinks, please." I pay the cashier, find a table, and then tell my new friends about the wonders of soft drinks. "So here's the idea. Each of these drinks are really sweet," I say while gesturing to the soda machine. "To me, some are better than others. Now you can't go wrong with any of these Cokes here, Sprite's okay, this root beer can fuck off, and Dr. Pepper can absolutely fuck off. Oh shit, they got Sunkist here, this is unreal, I recommend this over all others, because this is the dankest of all the sodas," I say while filling my cup with orange soda. Stuff is amazing, straight up. Fanta, Sunkist, Crush, you can't go wrong with orange soda. It's the best.

Morgan gets Coke, Inigo goes for the Sunkist (he really is a smart guy) and Lucina gets Sprite. After that, we all sit down. "I don't know exactly when the pizza's gonna be ready, but it should be here in like ten minutes." All of them are reacting quite strongly to the soda. Odds are, this is the sweetest drink they've ever had, and it's their first time drinking it. "So uh, how are the drinks?"

"My, this is incredibly sweet. There is nothing like this in Ylisse," Lucina remarks. I can't tell if she likes or dislikes the drink.

"I can see that your praise of this drink is well founded," Inigo says while nodding in approval. Now there's a guy with some good ass taste!

"I wonder what exactly they put in here?" Morgan asks. The truth is, I don't know everything that goes into soda myself.

"Alright, so there are some questions that I still need to ask on my end, do you guys mind?" They shake their heads, giving me the greenlight to ask away, and I start prying.

"Tell me, what exactly motivates you to fight against Grima? Beyond, that is, the fact that your parents are all Shepherds?"

"We want to create a better future for everyone. Ourselves, our families, our friends, and for the lives of all the innocent citizens that will have their lives taken by that monster," Lucina says, drawing us more looks from everyone else in the restaurant. A young black man at the table next to us asks me a question.

"Yo, what the fuck are these white people on, man? They're speaking really weird and shit."

"That's just how they talk, man. Don't worry- they're harmless." My comment doesn't exactly stop the funny looks that we're getting.

"I wonder, what exactly do you do?" Morgan asks. Sometimes, this question can be embarrassing to answer- I get the feeling this won't be one of those times.

"Basically, I'm an entertainer. Though in my world, the terms are different- you could call me a content creator, or YouTuber." This is extremely vague; I haven't really told them the nature of my videos or what they're about. But I'm about to specify. "There's a form of interactive entertainment called video games. They have quite a big following, and I make videos about a select few games in particular. The one I talk about the most is Counter Strike: Global Offensive, or CS:GO for short."

"And what exactly is this game, CS:GO, about?" Lucina asks. I think we all know how weird CS:GO sounds coming out of her mouth.

"There are many different game modes in CS, but the most well known one is bomb defusal. Here's the basics. You have two teams, Terrorists and Counter Terrorists, or T's and CT's for short, with five members each. There's two bombsites, labeled A and B, and the Terrorists have the bomb. The game is played out in rounds, which last one minute and fifty five seconds. When T's plant the bomb, it'll explode in forty seconds unless it's defused. There are different win conditions for each side. Terrorists win if they kill all the CT's, or they plant the bomb in one of the bombsites and it goes off. CT's win if they kill all the T's, defuse a planted bomb, or if the time runs out and the Terrorists didn't plant the bomb. You play a maximum of thirty rounds, and you're guaranteed to play both sides- first to sixteen rounds wins. If, after thirty rounds, the score is fifteen to fifteen, then it goes to overtime. The rules vary in overtime, but usually you play a max of six rounds and if you get four, you win. That's the barebones of it, but it is a lot more complicated than that. Trust me, A LOT." Damn, that was a long ass rant. The crazy thing about me saying CS:GO is much more complicated than what I've explained so far is that most esports are actually much more complex than CS. I don't follow them as closely, but League of Legends (LoL), Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2), Overwatch (OW), Starcraft 2 (SC2) and Starcraft Brood War (BW) are all supposed to be way harder to follow than Counter Strike.

"So then, what exactly do you do for this Counter Strike?" Inigo asks me, genuinely curious. Wow, he sounded real awkward back there. I'm just gonna ignore that and answer his question right about now.

"The content, or videos, that I create are meant to be educational and entertaining in nature. Some lean more towards one end than the other. The entertaining videos are usually gameplay, or some funny moments that happen to be caught while recording. The educational videos involve discussing and crafting common or new tactics, talking about CS philosophy and concepts, or talking about the professional scene. Oh, how convenient, the pizza is here." A waiter lays it down on our table, and after my explanation, I can't tell if Lucina, Morgan and Inigo understand what I just said. I tried to simplify it as much as possible, but I probably used some shorthand along the way that they don't know yet.

"Alright, so here's how you eat pizza. You just split up the slices and then get in there- no utensils needed. I prefer to eat the crust first, but each to his or her own," I say before eating. The pizza is as good as ever, but now we're getting weird looks again.

This must be a really weird day for these dudes in the pizza place- you have four total newcomers, three of which are white and one of which has a British accent. Not to mention, these guys look totally lost in this world, and now they see someone eating pizza crust first. A strange day indeed.

"So, what's the verdict, the final opinion?" Oh, and to add on to the strangeness for these customers, my newfound friends also haven't had pizza before.

"I must say, I'm impressed with the food of your world so far!" Morgan exclaims.

"I'll need to make sure the castle chefs know how to make this when we get back home," Lucina says casually. Another positive thought.

"My, my, unusual it may be, this food of yours is quite tasty," Inigo says, impressed.

After a while, my phone rings. It's Sarah. I pick up the line and ask, "What's up?"

"Yo, John and I are at the place," Sarah says flatly.

"Okay, heading back there now," I reply before she hangs up. "Alright people, let's go. Yo, thanks for the pizza!" I exclaim before I leave, getting a "Thank you!" in response.

It's a relatively quick drive back, and sure enough, everyone's at Anna's Transporters safe and sound. Upon seeing us, Anna leads us back into the building, and right where the Outrealm Gate is located.

"Holy Jesus," John says, stunned.

"Well, the conspiracies were true after all," Sarah declares, no doubt feeling satisfied that one of her "crazy ass theories" has been proven true. I look around the room, and notice that everyone else looks relatively calm about it, probably because they've seen the Gate before.

"Alright, listen up," Anna tells us. "Here's what happened in a nutshell. The Gate was supposed to take you people back to Ylisse, but it fucked up and you all ended up here instead. I know this because my family keeps up with me- we're constantly in touch, letting each other know what's happening, what important events are going on. I've been looking at the Outrealm Gate, and my conclusion is this: the Gate didn't take you guys to Ylisse because it ran out or didn't have enough of a key ingredient made up of many different substances."

"So if we can get this ingredient…" Sarah starts.

"Then they can travel back home," Anna finishes that thought, but starts a new one. "Here's where we run into problems. We can't just throw them all into the Gate and expect it to work; they need to be made a certain way for the Outrealm Gate to accept the substance. It's not something I know how to do, and I would hope that none of you know the process as well."

"What exactly is this substance that you're talking about?" Laurent asks.

"It's made of many different ingredients all at once. These ingredients are: acetone, lithium, toluene, hydrochloric acid, pseudoephedrine, red phosphorus, sodium hydroxide, sulfuric acid, and anhydrous ammonia," Anna explains. If I don't know how to pronounce some of those words myself, then the Justice Cabal definitely-

"Oh fuck," I say out loud before I know it.

"What?" John asks, suddenly concerned.

"Dude, that's the shit they use to make meth!" I exclaim.

"That's what I meant when I said the ingredients need to be mixed in a certain way for the Gate to work. Now, I'm not an international drug lord, so I can't just ask one of my co workers to deliver the stuff along with the daily mail."

"How much of this meth do we need?" Lucina asks.

"We need twenty pounds," Anna replies coolly.

"Can't we just buy it?" Severa asks, the sarcasm in her tone indicating that she doesn't understand how much twenty pounds of meth costs.

"We don't have the money for that shit, it's not like we're filthy rich or anything," John says in response.

"Perhaps we can simply attain the ingredients and then attempt to make this meth you speak of?" Laurent asks. A noble suggestion, but…

"Boi, the fuck I look like to you, Walter White?" Sarah asks rhetorically. "We don't know how to make it, and we also don't know how dangerous the process can get."

"So then how the fuck do we get our hands on twenty pounds of meth in the fastest way possible?" John asks, looking very confused and frustrated.

Wait.

As crazy as this is gonna sound, this is a possibility.

"Well, this leaves us with one option," I say, drawing all the eyes in the room to me in the process. After waiting for a brief moment, I finish my thought.

"We could try to steal it."

 **Author's Note: AWWWWW SHIT! IS IT ACTUALLY HAPPENING?! Anyways, I'm trying to update as fast as possible while keeping the chapters at around the same length and making sure that there's no grammar errors, or a sentence doesn't flow clunkily, that sort of thing. So with that, I think we know where this story is going. Leave me a review for anything really- what do you think is gonna happen next, things you like or dislike about this story, etc. I think it really helps me as a writer and makes things more exciting for the lovely readers out there. I'll be back with another chapter ASAP, so stay tuned everyone.**


	5. And Here's The Plot

**Author's Note: New Chapter. And we go further downhill...**

"And Here's the Plot"

October 12, 2:52 PM

Morgan

Compton, California

Justice Cabal

"Well, this leaves us with one option," Mason said.

I wonder, should I be glad or worried that I was half expecting Mason to say what he said next?

"We could try to steal it."

After Mason utters those six words, I notice that everyone in the room, me included, goes silent for a moment, as though to process his proposition. After this brief silence, everyone's reactions vary.

John, Sarah, and Anna start laughing uncontrollably. Owain, Severa and Yarne look beyond confused. Laurent, like me, seems to be attempting to theorize how we would steal twenty pounds of this meth Anna and Mason speak of. Inigo, Lucina and Cynthia don't seem to have much of an opinion on the matter yet.

"Oh man, is this like an idea for one of your videos or some shit like that? Sheeeeit, I'll get you the camera, you just need to sit outside the meth lab like 'Hi, I'm Mason, and welcome to Jackass!'" John says, attempting to hold back laughter with one of his hands on Sarah.

"Holy fucking shit man, I think you are smoking that legal pot," Sarah says, struggling between fits of laughter.

"It would be an elaborate plan, one that would need to be executed perfectly, but I don't think it's out of our reach." Somehow, Mason is completely calm and serious as he's speaking. Well, he does talk to people for a living, assuming that he wasn't lying about his profession, so it makes sense that he shows such emotional control.

"Yo, we aren't on camera, this is real life, you can stop acting now." John is still laughing; he hasn't grasped that Mason is taking this suggestion seriously.

"I mean, you are a convincing actor, but we'd like to see the real Mason now," Sarah remarks, still thinking that Mason is playing some sort of sick joke on everyone.

"We'll need information, and supplies. Not to mention, we'll need to know how much meth is in the area that we're raiding as well, so we don't end up short on the product," Mason continues, apparently the only one taking this idea seriously outside of myself and Laurent.

Suddenly, the laughter begins to die down from Anna, John, and Sarah.

"My god, you are serious," Anna states flatly.

"Lord Almighty, I don't believe in you, but save this man's soul," Sarah says, concerned at her friend's words.

"Oh my fucking god, I think you've finally lost it," John was utterly stunned at everything Mason proposed.

I must say, even though I don't trust Mason, he's right: stealing twenty pounds of meth really is our best option.

"Think about it," I start in my defense of Mason's proposition, "we've already established that we don't know how to make this meth, and we also don't have the money or influence to access it either. There really is only one thing we can do, and that is to steal it."

"Morgan, I don't think you understand what he's suggesting here. First of all, we'd have to steal this shit from hardened criminals who will be guarding it with their lives," John retaliates.

"The second problem is that we don't even know where we'd find twenty pounds of meth," Sarah continues.

"Third, we'll have drug dealers and police on our asses like porn stars just for suggesting a twenty pound meth heist, let alone actually getting in there and grabbing the stuff," John adds on.

"Fourth, we are not fucking criminals! We don't know how to steal shit and get away with it!" Sarah yells.

"And fifth, those drug dealers and police officers have got some awful shit in store for us if we get caught. The police are gonna have us all going to jail for a long ass time, and the drug dealers are just gonna fucking kill us, straight up!" John exclaims.

"Well, do you have another proposition?" Laurent asked. As I thought- he was on board with the plan.

…

…

"So are we on board, everyone?" Mason asks.

"I'm in," Severa said nonchalantly.

"Well, I don't have any other ideas right now, so I'll go with it," Inigo said, declaring his approval of the plan.

"Uh, I guess I'll follow you, Mason," Yarne was nervous as ever. I'd laugh if I didn't know why he was like that all the time.

"Unconventional your methods may be, we must follow you, lest the world be brought to an end by Grima!" Owain exclaimed, as theatric as ever.

"The Justice Cabal will fully support your decision, Mason. Show us the path and we will forge it!" Cynthia declared with as much gusto as Owain.

"Laurent and I are already on board with the plan," I proclaim.

"I do believe that this heist you are proposing is our only chance at going back to Ylisse," Lucina has the same stony expression on her face. One of these days, I'll need to get her to crack.

Silence again. We all stand still, divided on what the next course of action should be.

"Say, Anna…" Mason trails off, but it may as well be a question given his tone of voice.

"Yes?" She asks back cautiously, worried about what Mason might propose ever since he established the possibility of a mass robbery.

"Look, this is gonna sound really presumptuous, but just bear with me. So, let's make the connection here. You happen to live in Compton- which, no offense to the residents- is considered the ass end of Southern California. When people want to move themselves and their families to California, they want to get to Orange County, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, San Diego; Compton happens to be very low on the list for a lot of people. Why, you may ask? Well, let's just say that for how over the top gangsta rap can get, the fact that a lot of the 'violent acts' depicted in these types of songs takes place in Compton is fairly realistic." Mason pauses for a moment, and then continues his speech.

"Now, of course, the main reason why crime is so common in Compton is not because it's where a bunch of black people happen to live. It's because a lot of these unfortunate black people happen to be poor and this city was one of the only places that they could afford to live in. Now let's say you're one of these unfortunate dudes. What do you do given two options: work long ass hours at some fast food shithole for minimum wage, or start dealing drugs where the pay is way better?" Once again, he stops for a bit, as though to let us think on the scenarios he's presented. It almost sounds like a rhetorical question, until he speaks up again.

"Of course, the second option also brings a whole new host of problems with it. The police are gonna be on to you, plus if you get in deep enough and do enough shit, you could be looking at a long ass time behind bars. Start dealing on the wrong corner, and you'll have a squad of rival dealers looking to whoop your ass like Alabama did Notre Dame in the 2013 Championship. You see, they don't tell you about this shit when they're giving you the sales pitch. They throw it in the motherfucking fine print when you're well on your way to signing the contract. But many end up picking the second option anyways since they've had enough of the first option and the bullshit there." I must admit, I still don't understand the majority of Mason's rhetoric, but he's basically saying that in rough neighborhoods, many turn to a life of crime. Sadly, this is fairly commonplace in our world as well- it's a shame that hasn't changed over the years. But I start to wonder- why is Mason going on this speech right now? It doesn't seem to be very relevant to going back to Ylisse at the moment.

"Now I know what some of you are thinking- why am I going on this speech right now? So far, it doesn't seem like what I'm saying is relevant to going back to Ylisse at the moment." Damn, he practically read my mind! For someone who comes off as rather odd, Mason really knows exactly who he's speaking to- I'm starting to see how he became an entertainer. "But, this is where you and I make the connection. John, Sarah and I happen to live in Orange County, a pretty safe area. Unlike Compton, crime is not rampant down there. We need to jack twenty pounds of crystal meth to go back in time, right? With all this in mind, I think you, Anna, are more likely to find or know someone who deals the stuff than we are in our suburbs."

A grim expression falls over Anna's face as she begins to realize what Mason is proposing, as though he has suggested something even brazen than his idea from just a few minutes ago. "Oh, hell no, I can't do that."

"Come on, Anna. You've transported criminals before, right? So you're bound to know some of them on some level- phone numbers, return customers, I dunno. Look, you're our best shot here. We can't just slowly go about our business; there are wars being fought back there. The longer we take here, the more people die over there. Now, I don't think it requires some great intellect to know that's a bad thing. Please, Anna, help us," Mason pleads with surprising conviction. I'm impressed with how much he's advocating for our cause.

"We need you, Anna. I cannot bear the prospect of innocent people dying while we simply sit around and do nothing," Lucina says, serious in her convictions as usual.

"We've only got one way to get back, and it runs through you. So please, help us out here," I chime in, trying to give my best pleading face.

While Anna is mulling over what she should do here, everyone else is trying to get John and Sarah on board with the plan.

"Look, you gotta understand, this is the only option here. All other avenues have been cut off," Mason begins.

"It has already been established that you cannot make this crystal meth, and we don't have the money or influence to simply access the twenty pounds we need. Ergo, our only option is to attempt a raid," Laurent remarks matter-of-factly.

"So? Are you two just going to do nothing, or are you going to help save the world?" Severa asks rhetorically, angry and sarcastic as ever.

Sarah and John still haven't made a decision; like Anna, they've gone silent, probably to mull over their next decision. Just when it looks like they're about to decide, Anna speaks up first.

"Okay, I'll help you guys out. Give me your phone numbers and I'll let you know if- no, when- I find someone who's shipping in meth," Anna declares. Thank gods, she's joined us!

"Well, it may be just a phone number, because I don't know if these two are on board yet," Mason says, gesturing to his two friends. "Come on, you guys just gonna sit on the bench, or are you gonna get on the field with the rest of us?" He can be very convincing when he wants to, I notice.

…

…

"Okay, fine. I'm in," Sarah states quietly.

"Ditto," John says dryly.

It seems like they both still have their doubts, but for now they're with us here. For the time being, we are all united on the same goal; my father always told me that you need to make sure your troops have to be all focused on the plan of action you lay out- if not, the results could prove disastrous.

After the three friends exchange the aforementioned "phone numbers", they say their thanks and goodbyes and we all travel back with the same people that took us here initially.

"Mason, I must give you my sincerest thanks. You've given us a course of action to work with here, and you also managed to convince Anna, our only hope of going back to Ylisse, to help us out along with your friends," Lucina says politely and formally, befitting for a princess like herself. Granted, she does more of her work on the battlefield than behind a desk, but she still received a formal, private education courtesy of being heir to the throne, one which involved many lessons on speaking and etiquette.

How do I know all of this? Well, Lucina and I happen to be very close. We already spent quite a lot of time given the fact that as a tactician, I'm second in command to Lucina. As a result, I spent many meetings and nights with her crafting plans. Yet, despite all the time I've spent with her, along with some of mine and Inigo's sincerest efforts, I've very rarely seen her smile or laugh.

Well, I suppose it's understandable, given what Lucina has had to go through. Most people would break under a fraction of the pressure she carries, the battles she's fought, the horrors she's witnessed and the people she's seen… I don't need to mention it, especially given that she fought alongside and became close to many of these people.

The truth is, I'm worried for her. She's constantly putting on this figurative mask in front of everyone; in fact, she was going to wear a real one for when we got back to Ylisse. In addition, while she clearly does care for everyone under her command, Lucina is always keeping a careful distance between herself and everyone else.

I could understand if she were doing this with other politicians, but she's doing this to all of us, even me and her sister. Her behavior, I've found, is quite worrying on many levels. For one, she's gotten too good at wearing that mask. It's next to impossible to get a read on what Lucina is thinking or feeling. If she can't trust or get close to her loved ones, how can she hope to trust anyone at all? Also, she seems to be trying to do too much all at once. She will constantly take on the brunt of the work, and will always be on the frontlines for a battle.

Such a workload is utterly exhausting- and she expects the same from all of us, as well. It's plainly obvious to all of us that she won't be able to keep it up for much longer. Father always told me that having close friends to confide in was one of the most important thing in any army- not only would this more than likely increase effectiveness on the battlefield, but having those close friends helps to cope with the horrors of war. Attempting to suppress emotions, he noted, almost always leads to tragedy.

"Nah, don't mention it Lucina, it ain't no thing, know what I'm saying? We just gotta make sure this raid is successful, you feel me?" I'm not looking at the person who said that, but since none of us talk with his tone of voice and vernacular, I find it quite easy to deduce who just said that.

Speaking of Mason, I truly don't know what to think about him. His mannerisms and appearance are somewhat childish, but underneath that… I can't put a finger on it. I'll need to watch him closely.

Eventually, we arrive back at Mason's home. He opens the door and leads us all in. "Yo, Morgan, you mind talking with me in my room?" Mason asks while apparently setting up another one of his devices. "Alright, it's all set up. Okay, there we go. Lucina, Inigo, this is what some real ass professional Counter Strike looks like. This is the type of thing I talk about on a daily basis. Knock yourselves out and enjoy the series. Oh, and here's some potato chips- the preferred snack of Americans everywhere, which explains why a lot of us aren't in great shape," Mason continues while leading me into his room.

"ELEAGUE Season 1, Group A Finals. Luminosity Gaming vs. Cloud9. One of the most exciting Best of 3's in all of CS:GO; all the games were rather close, and the crowd was excited from start to finish. Also one hell of an introduction to television for CS:GO. Sadly for the American fans in the crowd, the heavily favored Brazilians, Luminosity Gaming, won out over Cloud9. Don't worry, they can't hear us through the wall, and we can't hear the game playing back there, since the walls are soundproof. But enough of that, let's get down to some real ass business, you know what I'm saying?" Mason's gone back to his default, casual tone of voice ever since his negotiations with Anna and his friends.

"And what would this 'real ass business' be?" I ask, genuinely curious. Mason, I've found, doesn't lack for surprises.

"Here's the thing. You're a tactician, right?" I nod in response. "Well, I'm something of a tactician myself. Now, we have different types of strategies, but you and I are somewhat similar in that regard. You create, discuss and break down tactics for a large scale army, and I do the same for Counter Strike."

"So, forgive me for sounding rude, but tell me where exactly this is leading?" I ask again. It seems that Mason likes to take his sweet time to craft narratives and draw parallels before getting to his point. I've always preferred a much more direct approach to talking myself.

"Okay, so here's the thing. I left Lucina and Inigo alone out there, on the couch, for a reason, you feel me?" Wait- does he see it too? Well, I do suppose it's be rather easy to deduce if one put some effort into thinking about it. "I think that Lucina and Inigo like each other, in that way, you know what I'm saying?" He says while making an unclosed fist out of his left hand, and then shoving his right index finger in and out of the hole created as a result of that unclosed fist that he left on purpose.

"How did you find out so quickly?" I ask. Without hesitating, he responds.

"Make the connection here, Morgan." I think I already did, but I'll just go with it for now. "So Inigo is physically attracted to pretty much any girl, straight up. Now, Lucina is no exception, and let's get real here, your blue haired homegirl is rather attractive. But I have this gut feeling that Inigo has real ass romantic feelings for the princess, you feel me?" Well, Lucina always would turn heads of the opposite sex whenever she walked past. She'd look even better if she smiled more and didn't look so tired as a result of overworking.

"Well, your reasoning is right. It's common knowledge among us that Inigo has a crush on Lucina and Lucina has a crush on Inigo. I'm impressed that you found out so quickly. But what exactly have you brought me in for then?" I don't know how I'll react to his next suggestion.

"Listen, I was wondering if you could help me get those two hooked up. Because between a battle tested princess and a major league lecher, I think it's fair to assume that neither is too experienced in the field of romance, you know what I'm saying?" His reasoning is, once again, surprisingly sound. Though in this case, I don't know if it's more a product of good thinking on his end, or rather observing the incredibly obvious.

In any case, it would appear that Mason has made yet another interesting proposal. He's essentially asking me to play matchmaker with him. I'm not exactly experienced in this field- my father apparently is, but I haven't asked him about it yet.

But this is a good opportunity. By getting close to him, I'll be able to find out whether I can trust this Mason or not. And along with that, we can finally see Inigo and Lucina get together.

It's about time they start moving up anyways. They've been standing still far too long.

 **Author's Note: Well, shit. Looks like Mason and Morgan have a common OTP. The next couple of chapters are going to see some character development, but at the same time should set the stage for future events. I know, doesn't sound all that appealing at first glance, but trust me, I got some real good shit planned out here. Be sure to review for… well, any reason really. They (usually) help me when I'm writing. Stay tuned!**


	6. Matchmaking Academy: Black Operations

**Author's Note: Holy shit, I'm sorry I took so damn long. My reasons: House of Cards Season 5 came out on Netflix (Kreygasm), I got Fire Emblem Echoes (Double Kreygasm) and I had some school stuff to deal with (sexual excitement killed). Not to mention, I've been working on other writing projects for you lovely readers. Now then, a change to the format...**

"Matchmaking Academy: Black Operations"

October 12, 3:49 PM

Mason Wayne, Morgan

Orange, California

Justice Cabal

"Okay Mason, I think I'll help you."

"Thanks Morgan. Anyway, that's all, I'll just be chilling in here." With that, Morgan walks out of the room. And thanks to the walls being soundproof…

"The thing that you and Theodore both need to understand is that Lucina and Inigo happens to be one of my favorite pairings. I could practically smell the sexual tension brewing between those two in our car ride- the only thing missing was the smell of cum scattered across the car. Here's something you should know: when you've played Fire Emblem as much as I have, you pretty much become a shipper by necessity; pairing units up often ends up saving your ass in tough chapters, and you also can't help but like certain pairings."

I go out to grab a Sunkist from the fridge, and also to check up on Lucina, Inigo and Morgan. They're on the couch, talking to each other while the Cloud9 vs Luminosity Gaming series is still playing on the television. "You see, Lucina can, and probably is, telling herself that she doesn't feel anything for Inigo. No doubt farmers are jealous of all that bullshit." I eventually go back into my room.

"Unrequited love is truly a goddamn tragedy- I like to leave it in the stories I write, not have it play out in real life. Okay, so admittedly it can be comedic, but this sort of thing usually ends horribly for everyone involved. And speaking of stories…" I pull up several documents to reveal what I've been writing.

"You know, I never liked the term 'fanfiction'. I just call them stories- it's less clunky to say and doesn't have as much of a negative connotation as fanfic. It's a shame that the term is seen in such a negative light because I've read some truly fantastic tales on the internet. But I cannot, under any circumstance, let them see the stories I've written. I've had many ideas for Fire Emblem stories, but I only write some of them. I post even less."

"If they find these stories, they'll know that I'm withholding information from them. It'd be a disaster on the level of freakazoid's HLTV rating at ELEAGUE Season 2. Not like I can just throw them away, however. I have a soft spot for these stories. To delete them would be like throwing away family presents; I just can't do it."

"I wonder Theodore," I say as I take a swig of Sunkist. "How exactly can we get Inigo and Lucina together? I mean, I know how the support conversations go, but I'd imagine things would go a little differently now. But what am I still talking to you for- I'd be better off talking to Inigo himself." I walk out of the room, and ask Inigo to join me in my room. He goes in, and I try to start up a conversation.

"So tell me Inigo, what do you think of this place so far? Be honest- I'm used to people praising and shitting on America."

"Well, the only thing I can really say is that it's unlike anywhere I've ever been." How odd- it's an entirely new place, and yet he doesn't have many words to describe it.

"Anyway, enough with the pleasantries. I brought you in to talk about some, I'll say, black operations," Inigo may not understand what "black operations" is, but I try to sound as serious as possible so he knows that what I'm about to say is of utmost importance.

"Really? What is it?" He asks, his interest aroused.

"Let me tell you, his interest isn't the only thing that's aroused. Oh, and he can't hear me, so don't worry."

"Inigo, I want you to listen very carefully. In the time I've spent with you and your friends, I've come to the conclusion that you have romantic feelings for someone in your circle, and this person likes you back."

~Mason's Spare Bedroom~

Suddenly, Lucina was blushing quite heavily, the red shade on her face quite the contrast to her blue hair. "A-And who could this person possibly be, Morgan?!" It's amusing, if not surprising, that Lucina isn't well versed in the ways of romance.

"Oh come on now. Are you really so dense that you don't know who this person is? If you think about it, your not-so-distant admirer is incredibly easy to guess," I reply. Look, Lucina may not have as much emotional intelligence as the rest of us, but she has to know that Inigo has a crush on her. She has to!

Lucina sits on the bed, mulling over the possibilities for a little while before she finally speaks up. "I believe that this person has to be Laurent," She says coolly, convinced that she's right.

When she says that, I'm so disappointed at her that I have no words. Although I don't say anything, she can tell I'm frustrated with her, so she tries to guess again. "If not Laurent, then it must be Gerome, right?"

Not quite, Lucina.

"Yarne?"

Not even close.

"Owain?"

... Are you serious, Lucina? I have nothing to say right now. Literally nothing. All I can do is walk out of the room and into Mason's and let him know that Lucina is far more dense than we initially anticipated.

"What is it, Morgan?"

"It's worse than I thought with Lucina. She guessed Laurent, Gerome, Yarne and Owain."

"Are you for real, Morgan?" I ask. "No, no, no way man, there is no way she can be this goddamn stupid, I refuse to believe it man!"

"Sadly, Mason, she is 'this goddamn stupid', as you put it," Morgan replies.

Inigo looks beyond confused at the moment; I've told him that someone has a crush on him, and that I know he feels the same way, but Morgan walked in before I said just who it was.

"Wait, what are you two talking about with Lucin- oh. Oh my," His face turns red when he realizes the implications of what we're saying.

"Yes, Inigo, I think it's fair to say Lucina has a crush on you. Morgan and I saw the signs, so we decided to help you two get together. But since your homegirl is inept on a level we haven't seen since the Cincinnati Bengals in the nineties and early two thousands, we're gonna need some extra help." With that, I text John and Sarah to get on the Discord, citing "real ass talk" as the reason for them to get on.

"Oh, right. This is Discord. It's another way of talking with people from a distance. By the way Inigo, the walls are soundproof, so don't worry about Lucina overhearing us. "Hello guys," I say when I see that both of them have gotten on.

"Yo, what is it?" Sarah asks. "Sounds like whatever you're talking about here, it's pretty serious."

"Okay, you guys both know how Inigo has a crush on Lucina, right?" Speaking of which, he's still blushing back there. It makes sense- he is quite flirtatious, but in the Fire Emblem universe, people don't talk about romance and sex as much and as frankly as we do today in the United States. Somehow, I think that four dudes trying to play matchmaker with him in the forefront isn't exactly something he's used to.

Damn, I did it again. I know that "dude" is only supposed to refer to a guy, but I just use it as a catch all term to refer to pretty much everyone. That's what living in Southern California for seventeen years will do to you. But enough of this rambling, I have more important things to address right now.

"Okay, so Morgan here tried to get Lucina to guess who had a crush on her. Honestly, Morgan, I still can't believe it. You need to tell them, man."

Morgan looks at my computer for a moment, no doubt trying to take in it's appearance. Eventually, she decides to tell them what Lucina told her. "So, when I asked Lucina, she assumed that her crushes were Laurent, Gerome, Yarne, and Owain."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" John exclaims. "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU GUESS THAT YOUR COUSIN HAS A CRUSH ON YOU?! LUCINA, YOU FUCKING MORON!"

"I just, I can't, I can't, I fucking can't right now. How do you guess Owain over Inigo? FUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK-"

When I look back at Inigo, he doesn't even look embarrassed anymore, rather just bewildered. Morgan looks just as appalled.

"Today, Inigo and Morgan see first hand just how passionate Sarah and John can get. Just like me, they're Fire Emblem fans, which pretty much makes them major league shippers. The three of us have certain pairings that we agree on, and others that we disagree on. Lucina and Inigo, however, are a pairing that all of us ship."

"Okay, so here's the thing. Morgan and I were planning on getting Inigo and Lucina together. But since it turns out Lucina is much more dense than we expected, we'll need some more help here. John, Sarah, are you guys on board?" I ask. I'm more than willing to bet that they're going to say yes.

"Yo, hell yeah man. Homegirl here doesn't have a damn clue what's going on, so imma help her out here. Plus those two are like my OTP." Damnit Sarah, I know they're your OTP, but you don't have to tell them about it- we don't want them to know what we know, after all. Man, that sounds confusing.

"Alright, I'm in," John proclaims.

"Good. Tomorrow, Matchmaking Academy is underway." This should be good for all three of us; I'll elaborate on it later.

"Wow Mason, you really do have a hard on for WarOwl. Looks like the rumors weren't exaggerated," John remarks sarcastically.

"Fuck off, man," I say before disconnecting. "Okay, I'll tell you what. Morgan, just like, chill here with Inigo. Go over, I dunno, strategy or some shit like that. I'm going to see for myself just how bad it is for Lucina and get us some dinner. Oh, but please talk about this in the living room after Lucina and I are gone." I'm glad they're polite enough to follow suit- my room contains some rather, we'll say, incriminating information. And by that I mean a metric ton of Fire Emblem related stuff.

"They've given me the reports. Now Theodore and I need to see if they've been exaggerated." I notice Lucina sitting on the couch, staring out the window when I call to her. "Yo, Lucina."

She spins around and looks directly at me. "What is it, Mason?"

"I was gonna go out and get some dinner for all of us. Come with me, man," I say, trying to sound casual and easygoing.

"Wha- I am not a man!" Lucina shouts. Man, you'd think that being a princess, they'd teach her how to socialize better. Oh well.

"Look, it's just a word I use to address pretty much everyone, dude. Yeah, and dude also falls into that category. I don't mean to insult your looks or anything like that, you feel me?"

Lucina seems to silently accept my explanation before asking me a question. "Can I assume that 'you feel me' means you are asking me if I understand what you are saying?"

"Hell yeah, dude. Now you're starting to understand. Come on man, let's get some food," I say as I open the door, letting her go out first. After she makes her way out, I close and lock the door behind me.

There's a silence as we make our way to the garage where the car is waiting. It's not that I feel nervous- okay, fine, maybe a little bit- but I'm mostly just trying to figure out how I should word my questions.

"You know, Lucina, Morgan sounded really upset when she talked to me back there. She said something about you incorrectly guessing who your crush was four times?"

"Yes, that's correct. I can't figure out why she's so upset over my personal life, to be frank," Lucina responds. The game did depict her rather accurately- for someone who's been battle tested, she's a total noob when it comes to social interaction.

"Well, it seems like to Morgan, the answer was obvious, but somehow you didn't make the connection. Of course, I don't know who among your group happens to feel that way about you. Hopefully, you don't have multiple admirers. I mean, if you do, then you're kinda fucked, like Makoto from School Days, know what I'm saying?" Good thing Lucina doesn't have a Magatama- if she did, then five red locks would be surrounding me right now.

"Obviously she takes romance seriously then." Lucina says as I start the car and back out.

"Wow, I didn't know. You know, I wonder what she was so pissed for again," I say sarcastically.

"I wonder, though. Who could possibly have romantic feelings for me, and why?" She thinks aloud.

"Well Lucina, I don't know yet who wants to hook up with you. But I could see why someone would want to, know what I mean?"

"No, I don't. And what does 'hook up' mean?"

"It means having sex with someone. Over time, it also expanded to mean having sex with someone you don't know."

"Your people have sex with strangers?! What type of world is this?!" She exclaims, shocked.

"Things change, man. But that's another discussion for another day. Anyways, let's get real. I can see how someone would be turned on by you."

"Do I even want to know what 'turned on' means?" I can tell Lucina doesn't want to know, but…

"By turned on, I mean sexually attracted. Like, think about it. Your face is pretty, with no pimples, unlike me. Overall, you're not ugly. Hairdo isn't bad either, and you got the whole warrior princess thing going as well. So whoever marries you is getting together with one of the most powerful women on the continent, politically and physically. Also, since I think it's fair to say you're physically fit, the sex is probably gonna be amazing, know what I'm saying? Now, I don't know what the ass and titties situation with you is like, but everything else should give the guys reason to want you, fuck you, feel me?"

From the look on her face, I don't think she wanted to understand what I was saying. She is taken aback right now, staring at me with an expression that reads "What type of awful culture promotes your manner of speech?" I guess this is what happens when you go from medieval times, where people only have sex if they marry, to modern day North America, where we're utterly crazed with the act.

"By the way, ass and titties means-"

"No, no thanks Mason, I think you've told me more than enough, thank you very much." She's really starting to blush now.

"Look, Lucina, I know my description was kinda vulgar…"

"Mason, that's a massive understatement." Holy shit, her face is as red as the jerseys in a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers.

"But still, I could definitely see how someone would wanna fuc- I mean, marry you."

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" She asks, evidently still not familiar with North American slang.

"Yeah, it is. If someone says, 'I really wanna fuck this guy', or 'I'd love to fuck her brains out', then they find that person attractive- they're complimenting that guy or girl's looks," I say as I pull into the Taco Bell Drive Thru. I don't care that it's unhealthy and my family calls it "fake Mexican food", this shit is delicious and cheap.

"Um, thanks?" Lucina says reluctantly, not knowing what to think. As I wait for the cars to move, I notice her face perk up, and she asks me another question. "Mason, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"What is it, yo?"

"This person who has feelings for me… it wouldn't happen to be you, right?"

Okay, now it's my turn to be caught off guard. I legit cannot believe she just said that. In fact, this is quite embarrassing- I really didn't think she'd ask me that.

I look away and out my rolled down window as I talk to her- not only are we close to the ordering station, but if I'm blushing then I'd rather not have her see it. "The answer to that, Lucina, is a resounding no."

"Oh," She says flatly.

"Okay, so she is pretty hot, but I'm not interested in marriage and relationships yet. Besides, the point is to hook her up with someone else, not for me to hook up with her." We finally get to the ordering station as I finish my sentence. "I'd like a Mexican Pizza combo with a 7 Layer Burrito, please…"

 **Author's Note: When Mason talks to the readers, no one else can hear him. It's very similar to how Frank Underwood from House of Cards breaks the fourth wall in that respect. Anyways, sorry for the delay, but I finally got this chapter out. Little bit of character development going on here, and even though it was mostly told from Mason's POV, we'll be having more dual perspective chapters down the line. Follow and favorite this story if you're liking it, and review if you wanna leave some kind words or constructive criticism. See you later (hopefully not too late).**


	7. Whack-A-Mole

**Author's Note: Got another chapter here. Somehow, despite my infrequent updates and godawful writing, I still have people willing to read my stories. For that, thank you. Your reward is more crap-tier writing.**

"Whack-A-Mole"

October 12, 5:44 PM

Morgan, Mason Wayne

Orange, California

Justice Cabal

I won't lie, the "pizza" that Mason got us earlier was honestly pretty good. This "Taco Bell", however, was the exact opposite.

The "meat" was simply awful. Seriously, I'd rather eat raw bear than go through that again. For one, raw bear is less likely to cause me stomach problems. I've been in the bathroom for the past twenty minutes now- I don't know what the cooks did, but they clearly did not prepare the food right.

Which leads me to wonder: why does he like this "food" so much? I didn't get to ask him because my stomach was practically killing me on the inside before I got the chance. And from the looks of Inigo and Lucina at the dinner table, they had the same issue.

Speaking of Inigo and Lucina…

~One Hour Earlier~

"Well, that was awkward," Inigo remarked.

"Now you know how you make all those girls you flirt with feel," I replied. We go out to the living room like Mason told us to after we hear the door open.

"No one's brought it up yet, but I'm beginning to wonder…" Inigo starts, stopping to gather his thoughts for a moment before continuing, "do you suppose anyone else followed us in?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You remember what Anna and Naga told us, right? When you travel through the Outrealm Gate, you don't simply go through the Gate on the other side. You end up in the other world, but it could be anywhere. Do you think any more of our comrades, or, gods forbid…"

"Oh no… you think that perhaps the Risen tried to chase us through the Gate as well?"

It's an awful thought, but a plausible one. The Gate was heavily guarded, after all. The chances are pretty good that at least a few Risen managed to get in before or after we all made our way in.

"Hopefully if they did make it in, they've been killed by now," I say, worried. The thought of defenseless people being killed by those monsters is a disturbing thought for just about anyone.

"Indeed, sister," Inigo says in agreement. "How do you suppose the local militias will deal with the Risen?"

"Well, I can't imagine they're familiar with them. The good news is that their weapons should be much more advanced than what the Risen are carrying. The technology from this world is universally superior to ours, from the looks of things. So, I would hope they can deal with them fairly easily. Or at least, better than us."

Both of us are silent. Like me, Inigo is probably thinking of the injuries sustained and lives lost to these mindless monsters. I remember Father telling me that if one were to go to war, then you could never forget what you saw on the battlefield. I certainly couldn't- and many times I have woken up prematurely, thinking we were under attack. In some cases we were, in other cases it was a false alarm. Sometimes, I don't go to sleep or I'm afraid to do so because of what I'll see.

Talking about getting Inigo to court Lucina simply feels awkward afterwards. We simply remain silent, roaming everywhere in Mason's home but his bedroom. While Mason and Lucina are gone, I have time to think.

Can I really trust Mason? Right now, I can't. Which is why I'm doing this- I get to see whether he's truly trying to help us, and I also get to help my brother and best friend see their obvious feelings for each other. Seriously, I don't know how neither of them knew what was going on for so long. But hey, we're here to fix past mistakes, right? That includes the future AND Lucina's non-existent love life.

I wonder- if Mason has something to hide, then what is it? Why would he want to hide it? Where and how would he hide it?

Actually, come to think of it, that is rather suspicious…

With my realization fresh in my mind, I begin making my way towards Mason's room, out of Inigo's sight (he's in the other bedroom right now). Just a little closer…

I slowly maneuver towards the door, trying not to suddenly open it or make the floor creak, alerting Inigo to what I'm doing. A few more steps and I'll be at the door.

I look behind and notice that Inigo hasn't opened the door, meaning that he's still in the other room. Good. I slowly put my hand on the knob and-

Wait. I hear the door opening. Damnit.

I'm able to get back to the couch just as Mason walks in with Lucina, so I at least don't look suspicious. A few minutes later, I sit down for the worst meal I've ever had. It's so bad my focus goes from whatever is inside Mason's room to how my insides must be screaming at me right now.

After I finally get out of the bathroom, I notice that Mason is back in his room. My mind goes back to where it was before dinner.

 _Damn, I missed my chance. If you don't think about it all too much, then it makes sense that Mason wouldn't want me in the room- he wants his privacy respected. But it begs the question- why does he not want me to see what's in there? It's entirely possible that he'll just be embarrassed if others see what's inside, but he could also be holding evidence that proves him an enemy in disguise. When I was in there earlier, I didn't have enough time to look at everything in there. But the next chance I get, I'll make sure to conduct a thorough investigation…_ I then smile to myself. _Don't worry Mason. If you really are an ally, then there shouldn't be anything suspicious in there at all._

 _~Mason's Bedroom~_

I don't think that Morgan and Inigo are working for Grima. In fact, I hope not. But I can't exactly overlook the possibility. The signs, the pieces are all there for them to be servants of the Fell Dragon, the moles, if you will.

More than likely, I'm just being "too cautious" here. But hey, one of my key philosophies in Counter-Strike is that you can never be too cautious. Even at the professional level, many winnable rounds are lost due to the team with the advantage overlooking a spot, not using grenades properly, or positioning themselves poorly. When great individual plays in Counter-Strike, or really any sport or esport happen, it's almost always a mix of two things: an amazing play from the person in question and a massive mistake from the other side.

The Miracle on the Plains? Rain's 1v5 against Team EnVyUs? The Music City Miracle? Hiko's 3K retake vs Team Dignitas? New England's comeback on Atlanta in the Super Bowl? Snax's 1v4 against Natus Vincere? I'm telling you right now, all of those events I've mentioned are a great play or a series of great plays from the team or one player, and a massive mistake or a sequence of mistakes from the other team. Very rarely do you get something like, say, Derek Fisher's 0.4 shot, where one player makes such a spectacular play that the other team can't do anything about it.

When I was younger, I had a tendency to rush into things without really thinking everything through. This got me burned more than once, figuratively and literally, and when I was fifteen (three years ago) I decided that I had to change. I would tell you all the hilarious and sad details, but I'll have to tell that story another day. The point is, I hate making or seeing dumb mistakes and now I try to minimize them whenever possible.

Man, this got real intense, real fast. I never imagined at any point in my life that I would be helping the second generation characters from Fire Emblem: Awakening travel back in time by stealing twenty pounds of meth. Seriously, that sounds like a really shitty idea for a story that I'd come up with. But here I am, it's actually happening, and honestly it's beyond shocking.

Believe it or not, that's not even the most surprising part of it all. What's truly shocking is the fact that now I'm playing matchmaker for Lucina and Inigo.

Alright, even I can't sell you on that one- I'm just fucking with ya.

"You see there are two things that I cannot allow to be discovered. One, I can't allow any of my new guests figure out about my Fire Emblem knowledge. Two, I can't let Lucina discover that I'm playing matchmaker. There is one, or maybe I should say, several things that I can let them see, however."

I go to my closet and see that they're all still there. "Good. Maybe they'll trust me if they see this." Considering what I'm planning to show them, it seems pretty weird, but right now it may be the least suspicious thing inside my room.

Clothes. Hats. A computer for home, a laptop for when I'm travelling. A surplus of Fire Emblem fanfiction on both of them, whether it's my own work or someone else's amazing story that I'm one-hundred and one percent sure is better than anything I'll ever come up with. An untold amount of gaming and sports merchandise. Theodore Greene, my inanimate friend that always listens when I have something to say, and always makes an appearance in my videos.

Amongst all of them, there lies a stash which I've never used that might just save my ass. How fitting.

Right now, I have a group of trained, skilled killers that I'm fairly certain are suspicious of me, and I need to make them comfortable so they're not on my back anymore.

But sometimes, the only way to reassure someone is to show them something unsettling. After all, we are human, and imperfect- and sometimes, we need to remind others of that.

The magazines will have to come another day, however. I know I'm getting tired, and I'm pretty sure everyone else is too. It's too early for me to go to sleep, and I don't have the energy to play CS:GO right now, so I just casually browse Reddit and YouTube for the next several hours before I finally go to sleep, putting an end to what has easily been the craziest day of my life.

October 13, 8:12 AM

It's quite convenient that in this world, technology has also advanced so far that they can tell the exact time. It's also convenient that I can sleep in (relative) comfort for once, with a real bed and the knowledge that someone isn't going to try and kill me in my sleep. Or at the very least, if Mason tried to pull it off, he'd probably be a lot less of a threat than a Risen or Grimleal.

Either way, it's the best I've slept in a long time. I must have been truly tired, because I didn't have any nightmares this time. Maybe my mind was too tired to conjure them up. In any case, I'm glad they didn't come back tonight.

Maybe I should trust this Mason more than I have so far… wait, what am I saying? I DO trust Mason, it's just that I need to make sure he's fully trustworthy.

When I get out of the room, I notice that breakfast is ready and everyone else is awake. It's another new food- this time it's "pancakes" as Mason calls it. He told us all to try it with the syrup and bananas. I did, and it tasted pretty good. More than anything, it was extremely sweet. It's certainly better than the cold bread or porridge that we used to get. For the most part, everyone is silent as they eat.

After breakfast, Mason makes an announcement.

"When you all are ready, I'd like for you guys to see my room. There's… something I need to show you guys."

Now that's surprising. Guess I won't need to break into his room now that he's letting us in. I wonder why he's doing it, however? _More than likely, he's trying to earn our trust._ After that thought enters my head, I figure that must be the reason and don't think on it any longer.

In a few minutes, everyone else is ready and we all enter the room.

"Look, I know we didn't exactly get off on the right foot. But, I don't think it'll help any of us if I keep hiding shit from you guys, you feel me?" How odd. It looks like there's some kind of… book on his bed. If it is a book, it's rather thin and long. "I think it's about time you guys know about some of my deepest, darkest secrets. Go on, read those magazines on the bed," Mason says before sitting down in the chair.

I take a look and- oh gods. OH GODS. What in Naga's name am I looking at?!

Are those women NAKED?!

I look over at Lucina and Inigo, and they too are completely shocked. I'm not kidding- their faces are tomato red and contorted in shock right now. I can only imagine that I look just like them.

For some reason, I open it up and scroll through the pages. And inside is, what do you know, more naked women. I don't know why, but I keep scrolling through the pages.

"Pornography has been around for quite a while now. But in the 1950's, a guy called Hugh Hefner made a simple, but very profitable, connection. He already knew that men were into seeing very attractive women, whether half clothed or not at all. However, he wanted to make his own magazine. Hugh was able to put and two and two together and realized that people would pay to look at pictures of naked women. So Hefner took out some loans, and the first _Playboy_ magazine was published in 1953. It's still going to this day- a testament to just how successful he and his magazine was," Mason explains.

I like some of the changes that have been made in Mason's world. This, though, is not one of them. We did have novels that were… raunchy, so to speak, in our time, but never any nude paintings. And certainly nothing as blatant as this.

"Eventually, more people followed suit, and other magazines like _Hustler_ and _Penthouse_ came into the picture, quite literally. Then," Mason says as he gestures to his computer, "The Internet became a thing. Turns out you could make videos and upload them to the Internet, so…" Mason then goes onto his computer, and pulls up what I assume is one of those "videos" he mentioned.

After a brief delay, we all look and see that the "video" involves two people fully nude. Having sex. And they're being very loud about it.

"Nowadays, internet porn is the big thing, mainly because it's free, unlike the magazines. I mean, if you're paying for internet porn or even still reading these magazines, then you're kind of a fucking moron. All you gotta do is turn on Incognito mode or Private Browsing or whatever the fuck, and no one can trace that shit. Well, unless you're a government agent, and I don't think any of my friends work for the CIA. It's like, are you a kid living with his or her parents? Well, don't spend money on a porn mag that needs to be hidden- you're better off just doing that shit online, where you can delete the history and it's easier to hide."

"Wh-wh-why are you showing us this? A-and why do you have these magazines in that case?" Lucina asks, beyond embarrassed. For the first time in his life, Inigo is utterly speechless- I've seen him mortified before, but he was always able to come up with a witty comment or response in those situations. This time, he is truly taken aback.

"Three reasons," Mason responds. "One, I wanted to earn you guys' trust. I figured that if I showed y'all some nasty ass shit that most people would just hide, maybe you'd not be suspicious of me. Two, I have these magazines because of my friends."

Wait, his friends are in on it too?!

I'm starting to feel sick…

"See, my friends have a bit of a tradition that we started up around two years ago. By the way, these friends include John and Sarah, but there are some more friends that I haven't introduced you guys to yet. Here's how it works- on Christmas and our birthdays, two days where you get a massive amount of presents, we give the recipient, or recipients, two presents. One is a conventional present, something we think they'll like- clothes, games, whatever."

"The other," Mason goes to the bed and picks up one of the magazines, "is one of these. Shit, I still remember the first time it happened. Kevin, man- he never saw it coming; we all did a great job of hiding the surprise. Thank god he had moved out by then; if he was still in his house and his devout Christian parents saw them porno mags, it'd have gone from birthday to bloodbath in about twenty seconds."

"Oh, and the third reason is that I figured it'd be fucking hilarious if you saw this shit. Turns out I was right. Thank god I recorded that shit on camera, it was glorious." Mason concludes.

"Wait, what do you mean, 'recorded'? I ask. I have a really bad feeling about what that means.

"It's on my computer. So if I want to go back and watch you guys go beet red while having the most shocked look on your faces, I can do just that. Sorry, I'm not deleting that- this shit's staying on my computer."

"By the way, there are many different types of internet porn. So let's say you're into getting tied up-"

"No thanks," Inigo says quickly, his face still flushed as he walks out of the room as fast as possible.

"I, um, have something to take care of," Lucina says as she backs out of the bedroom.

"By the way, Morgan…" Mason says before trailing off.

"Yes?" I ask. I really just want to get out of this room. Now.

"I talked to Lucina, and man, it's bad. We're gonna have to put in some serious fucking work here, you feel me?"

"Uh, yeah. Agreed. Absolutely. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna talk to Lucina now," I respond, almost sprinting out.

You know what? Disregard everything I said about not trusting Mason. If he can't hide, no, won't even try to hide, something that I imagine most people would tuck off in a corner that no one would bother to check, then I think it's fair to say he won't hide any other secrets.

Besides, after seeing that, I don't even want to go back in…

~ _Mason's Bedroom~_

From the looks of it, my tactic worked. If nothing else, they're not gonna want to go in anymore. You could say they got… master baited. Wow, that was really bad. Sorry.

Suddenly, my phone rings. I reach over to see who it is.

It's Anna. I answer immediately. "Hello?"

"We've found some meth dealers."

 **Author's Note: Well, sheeeeeeeeeeeeit. We have ourselves a few plot twists here. I guess you could say that Morgan got PLAYED by your BOY Mason. Damn, I'm making all the bad puns today. Anyways, be sure to follow, favorite and review, whether it's constructive criticism or some nice praise. Sorry I took so long, but I am still writing. Stay tuned for the next chapter!**


	8. Hit 'Em Up

**Author's Note: Still going here. Looks like the plot is gonna get rolling now. To be honest, this story is meant to be table setting for something that'll grow much bigger- and much more different from what we have now. What is that, you may ask? Well, keep reading (hopefully I'll keep updating) and we'll see how it all pans out. Also, we're going to something of a new character here. Who is this character? Go on, brave reader (you'd have to be brave to keep reading this crap) and see who this person is.**

"Hit 'Em Up"

October 13, 9:02 AM

Mason Wayne

Orange, California

Justice Cabal

"Ok, so you've got some real ass dealers dealing some real ass meth?" I ask Anna on the other line, excited that we have a source now. I check my texts and notice that in a group chat, Anna has told Sarah and John as well.

"Well, it's more like a lead. Nothing's confirmed yet, but I have a friend who's high up in the Los Angeles Police Department. He says that one of the bigger gangs in Compton is gonna be bringing in a shipment of meth a week from now."

"Nice. How much meth are they bringing in?"

"He doesn't know."

"Sheeeeeeeit. Also doesn't help that the police probably are gonna be on the scene."

"Actually, they won't be, Mason?"

"Wait, what? Why would they not be there?"

"This is quite a big gang. They don't have the manpower to stop the shipment right now since they're preoccupied with other issues."

I never thought I'd be saying this, but thank God for criminals. "Oh, how convenient. Alright, I'll tell them and we'll get on it. Thanks for the lead, Anna."

"Yeah, you're welcome. I'll text you the address and send you some pictures of the place so you can see what it's like and where to go."

"Alright, thanks again Anna. Later." I hang up and put the phone on my desk.

So, in a week, we'll have a chance to rob the crystal meth needed to get them back home where they can (hopefully) save their future.

I go to my computer and start browsing the web- something of a morning routine for me. I know, I know, it's not exactly healthy.

On Reddit, I see there's nothing particularly interesting, so it's less like browsing and more like sifting through threads, articles and comments for a brief time before I forget them about two minutes after I close the tab. My mind quickly starts to go elsewhere.

You know, I never thought about it until now, but now that I've got nothing else to think on- I start to wonder: what happens when we get the meth and can send everyone back home? I got so caught up in how this happened, how can I earn their trust, how can we get them back to their timeline, that I never thought about what would happen when they eventually could get back home.

What should I do when this is all over? Stay here, or join them in Ylisse?

Yeah, I know, it sounds ridiculous. What could they possibly gain from a nerd like me with no fighting experience just inserting himself into their war? Well, to be honest, it's kinda already happened, but fuck that because I'm trying to make a point here!

I really shouldn't do that. Imagine me on the battlefield! It'd be like if someone gave me a pair of boxing gloves and said, "Hey buddy, you're scheduled to fight Ronda Rousey tomorrow. Good fucking luck, asshole! Hope you suffer some life threatening injuries while you're at it!" I'd get your ass kicked! I probably wouldn't survive the first minute, let alone the first round. If I did somehow, I'd probably be hyped up as the next big thing in the UFC.

That's the part of me that should be dominating my thoughts right now. It would, but unfortunately, Stuart has a little something to say about all of this...

 _Yo, think about it a little more. This is an opportunity you're never gonna see again. The cast of Fire Emblem: Awakening are right in your living room, man! You really wanna just walk away once the meth has been stolen?_

Look, I'm gonna get my nuts handed to me on a skewer with onions and tomatoes if I go to war! I'd rather get a BJ from a cobra and then do anal with a porcupine than have to kill someone else! I'd rather have Bill Cosby buy my friends and I a round of drinks! And I'm not even old enough to drink, plus I have a fear of snakes!

 _Mason, you're acting like a goddamn bitch right now. Get The Angry Video Game Nerd out of your head! You ever think about what could happen if you don't join them?_

They save their world and I continue to live happily in mine. The end.

 _Motherfucker, that won't happen. It's like when you used to procrastinate on your homework and then said, "I'll do it later." You know why?_

Ok Stuart, I'll humor you. Why?

 _One, you're not happy right now. Bitch, stop fucking lying to yourself._

Oh really? Last I checked, my YouTube channel was doing alright, my Fanfics are getting some positive feedback and I don't have crippling depression. The fuck were you saying about "not happy" again?

 _Mason, just because you don't have crippling depression don't mean you some happy-go-lucky, self-help book writing motherfucker. I know you don't get along with your parents right now because of your career choice, playa._

Hey man you best shut the fuck about th-

 _See, the fact that you responded like that tells me it's a problem. One that you've ignored ever since graduating four months ago._

...Okay, everything isn't all amazing. So what? My life may not be perfect, but guess what, no one's is, and I'd still say it's pretty good. Why would I wanna fuck it all up and maybe get myself killed fighting someone else's war?

 _This ain't just about that, man. You CAN help them, you're just not seeing it yet._

Dude, it's not like I have no experience. It's more like I have negative experience in warfare. Sounds like you're seeing something that just doesn't exist.

 _No, I'm not talking about that. I'm saying that you know what happens in the game, so that's how you can help 'em out._

Yeah… and so does Lucina. As well as the rest of her friends. I've got less to offer here than a hobo does to a charity.

 _Mason, listen to yourself right now! She's played the game, but she hasn't finished it yet. You, meanwhile, have done just that. Four times in fact- one of your playthroughs is even on YouTube for everyone to see._

Aw, shit. Well, I can't argue with that…

 _Motherfucker, even outside your head, you can't deny that shit._

I hate it when your dumb ass is right…

 _Just cause you and me speak in slang doesn't mean we're stupid. At least think about joining them, okay?_

And with that, he's gone.

"That right there was Stuart. I know, I know- it's an incredibly white sounding name for someone constantly talking in ebonics. I used to not speak in slang, to tell you the truth. I sort of developed it over the years, and then it eventually developed into my YouTube personality. It's what happens when you listen to enough rap and see enough Ghetto memes online. Eventually it became like a second language to me, even though it's still English."

I'm about to turn around and tell Lucina, Inigo and Morgan that we've found the dealers before I notice a "Breaking News" update on my computer. I click on it and…

"Holy fucking shit."

The headline reads "Mysterious, Aggressive Creatures Armed With Medieval Weapons Spotted In San Diego And Several Other Cities".

I sit back down in the chair and read the article, this one warranting interest. Clicking the video link, I notice that while they look human, their skin has taken on a purple tinge and their eyes are glowing red.

Shit. The fucking Risen have followed them in. As I go through the article, I see that they've appeared in other parts of America. Phoenix, Dallas, Chicago, and fuck.

Compton.

Don't they have enough problems down there as is?

To make matters worse, that's where we're going to have to pull our meth heist. I'd really prefer that they don't see Risen down here. If they did, that would add a whole host of unwanted questions, complications, and stress.

Speaking of the heist, I better get out there and tell them about it- but hold up on the Risen invasion. I walk out of the room and see Inigo, Morgan and Lucina in the living room. They all give me uncomfortable looks- clearly those magazines did a number on them.

"Okay guys, I have another announcement. Thankfully, it doesn't involve people fucking on camera for you to see."

...And they don't look any less awkward after I say that. Well, I guess I can't blame them.

"We have ourselves a few normal people bringing in crystal meth for us to steal and bring you back home with. The shipment comes in a week."

"Oh, good." Lucina says, looking slightly more comfortable now. Not much more comfortable, but it's better than nothing.

Inigo and Morgan, however, remain silent. I'm starting to think I may have taken it too far with the porn back there…

Nah, that's crazy talk. So what if they're a little uncomfortable around me? As long as they don't see what I'm hiding from them, it's fine. Sometimes, in order to establish personal space so that people won't fuck with you and get too close, you have to let them get too close. Then (if they can take a hint) they'll respect your boundaries and you're all set.

"Everyone else knows about it already. I'm thinking that we should check out the spot where the drugs are coming in so we can get a good idea of how to rob the place, know what I'm saying?"

"O-okay…" Inigo says nervously.

"Alright then," Morgan says quickly while looking away from me.

"Okay guys, let's get ready to roll here. Change clothes, take a shower, etc. I'll tell everyone else when we're good to go, okay?" I get silent approval as a response. As Lucina walks into the bathroom, I text John and Sarah, telling them to get ready- we're gonna scout out the spot Anna has told us about. Cynthia, Yarne and Laurent are staying over with Sarah, while Owain and Severa are crashing at John's place.

I'm the last one to take a shower. When I'm eventually ready, we all head to the car and I drive to the address that Anna has sent me.

"You know, I never thought I'd be going straight into Compton. Wonder what Ice Cube would think of this?" I say, while my passengers are unable to hear me.

I always wondered why that was the case. Like, seriously, how come no one can hear me when I decide to emulate Deadpool or Frank Underwood?

Wait, why am I questioning that? I don't think those dudes question why no one can hear them when they go on their Shakespeare-esque asides. So why should I question it? This shit is fucking awesome!

Eventually, we arrive at the spot, which looks like an abandoned warehouse. I saw one of these in a movie once. Then it turned into around thirty seven instances over the years. Seriously, why are abandoned warehouses so goddamn common in movies, TV shows, video games, anime, hell, ANY form of entertainment! What the hell did these warehouses do to become so popular?

Thankfully, I don't have to go on this thread much further, because soon after we arrive I see that John and Sarah have arrived with everyone in tow.

"Okay, I guess we should just scout out the area, see how we're gonna do this?" John asks. With that, we all start roaming around, seeing how we should rob the shipment.

"Yo Morgan, let's check this place out," I say. The young tactician walks towards my direction and we go inside the warehouse.

"Look at those rafters up there, Morgan. Now I learned from Obi Wan Kenobi that you gotta have the high ground. If we can take control of that, then surrounding these guys and getting the jump on 'em should be an easy task." I climb up the ladder to the rafters and notice that there is also a ladder outside that leads to said rafters.

"Check this shit out. We can climb up here from outside, Morgan," I exclaim from on high. She looks lost for a moment before turning back to me.

"Oh, oh yes, of course," She says, still looking and sounding distracted. Man, is the porn _still_ in her mind? I'm really starting to think she's lesbian or bisexual right about now.

As I keep walking through the warehouse, I take note of what's in here. There are some boxes and crates that we can hide in or behind, not to mention a few forklifts and golf carts lying around. Luckily for us, the keys are all still there, and after playing around with them for a bit, I can see that they still work perfectly fine. There are five offices downstairs, and three upstairs. The upper and lower level both have two exits, and the exits are pretty much identical on each floor. Up top you have a couple of doorways and on the bottom you just have these really big, open… entrances, I guess. I don't really know how to describe it, it's just a big ass opening.

All the while, Morgan still looks completely out of it.

 _Mason, as much as I liked the whole "show your porn stash so they won't get in your room" idea, you should still do something about Morgan. I'm just saying, it don't look like she trust you right now._

Yeah, don't worry Stuart, I'll set her aside and talk to her.

 _Motherfucker, you weren't gonna do that shit. You're only about to do it right now because I told your lazy ass about it._

Hey, better late than never. "Yo, Morgan, can you get up here?" I ask. I'm next to one of the offices on the upper floor, and she's sort of aimlessly wandering on the ground floor. Once again, it takes her a moment to respond.

"Sure, I'll be up there in a bit," She says before going up the stairs. After about thirty seconds, she makes her way to the office.

"Come in. I'm thinking we should talk in light of uh, recent events."

We both walk into the office and take a seat.

"Not gonna lie man, you seem kinda distracted. Is it from the uh, pornographic images this I showed you this morning?"

"Hmmm, what do you think it is? Those perverted… things you exposed me to earlier? Truly amazing deductive work you're showing here," She says sarcastically while looking me straight in the eye.

"Look, I'm sorry it made you feel kind of uncomfortable-"

"You don't say…"

"-but you gotta hear me out."

Morgan goes silent. After a few moments of awkward silence, I tell her my side of the story.

"Look, it wasn't an issue of me just being a dick. Though I gotta admit it was pretty fucking funny to see your reactions," I start out.

"You know, you're really not helping your case here," Morgan replies, the snark still in her tone. She's starting to sound like Severa right about now.

"Sorry. But I stand by what I said. The whole point of that was so that you all could trust me. After all, we didn't start out on great terms, what with me and my theorycrafting, you know what I'm saying?"

"And showing us naked men and women having sex, an act that's meant to be private, is supposed to get us to do that?"

"Make the connection, Morgan. Imagine I don't show you those magazines."

"I think my sanity would be much better off right now."

"Not quite. Here's what I'm thinking woulda happened. You and the rest of your buddies still wouldn't fully trust me. I mean, you guys would tolerate me just because my friends and I happen to know the ins and outs of this place, but you'd be hanging with me out of necessity, not because you think I'm a legit ally."

Thankfully, Morgan doesn't have a snarky reply for that.

"So, you guys are gonna be thinking, 'That Mason guy, I don't trust him man. Something's off about him, and he speaks kinda weird too.' Eventually when you get the opportunity, you and maybe a few other dudes sneak into my room and see what's in there. So you go in there to see if there's anything to incriminate me, to prove me as an enemy. Then, after a while, you find some pics of buck ass naked women tucked off in a corner of my room. Ain't that right?"

Silent once again. I sure hope she's buying into what I'm selling right about now.

"You're pretty smart, I'm not gonna lie. You'd probably have seen that shit one way or another. Would you rather have discovered it that way, while you're thinking imma sell you guys out, or when I'm just keeping it real and showing you what it's all about?"

"So your world is all about showing naked people for profit?"

"Honestly, yeah. They say sex sells, after all. But don't look at me- look at the people who work in advertising. They're the ones who figured this shit out and have been rolling with it for who knows how long now."

Oh man. Honestly, that is hilarious the more that I think about it.

I know that in the game, Morgan's design, male or female, isn't particularly, well, sexual. Some other characters from _Awakening_ and _Fates_ , however, are a different story entirely.

So basically I'm telling a character from a game that featured (and benefited from) heavy fanservice and (in some cases) rather sexualized character designs about the downsides of said fanservice. And let's face it, _Awakening_ , and to a lesser extent, _Fates_ , revived the series.

Damn. I can't believe I'm having this conversation right now. It'd be like if I was telling James Rolfe about why he shouldn't go on profanity-laced rants in his videos.

"My point is, I didn't mean no harm when I showed ya that. I just figured that I needed to break the ice. So, what do you say? No hard feelings?" I ask, extending my hand out to Morgan.

 _Well, there is at least one…_

Stuart, shut the fuck up.

Morgan stares at my right hand for a moment before eventually extending her own, giving it a firm handshake, (hopefully) a symbol that she trusts me.

 _Damn Mason, that's a strong ass grip she's got._

Well it makes sense Stuart- she is trained in swordplay, after all.

With that done, we observe the warehouse for another solid hour before we all get hungry and decide to grab some lunch.

 **Author's Note: Character development as we move closer to the big heist. Just to clear things up, Stuart is a figment of Mason's mind. When he started to speak in slang more often, he had this sort of pre-determined image of what that person would be. For Mason, Stuart is that person that he thinks of. When he starts speaking in slang, he also imagines Stuart is doing it as well. And as we can see, he can talk with Stuart inside his head. What do you guys think of Stuart? Let me know in a review, I'll see ya later.**


End file.
